Street performers aren’t
limited to intersections.
Oldest and I had hopped a
bus to the oceanfront. Given previous horror
stories about the public bus system in Lima,
I had pocketed enough for cab fare.
It is not unusual at all to
see people hop the bus, deliver a sales pitch, and dismount a few minutes
later, after making their sales. Candies
and nuts are the most commonly proffered, from impoverished yet entrepreneurial
folks who buy in bulk and sell at a small markup. We have seen costume jewelry, and some nicer
silver stuff, and once I saw a man peddling special invisible-ink markers, with
a UV-light – this gizmo was designed to detect counterfeit currency. Since Peru is a leader in this industry
(Hey, ya gotta be #1 at something) I wish I had bought one – but I haven’t seen
them since.
Entertainers are also common
– we have been entertained by comedians, and have considered paying generous
tips to awful guitar players if they would just get off the bus. Once a filthy old man produced a ballad with
an old violin that would make Clint Eastwood misty-eyed.
Today’s entertainment was a
young woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties, with a charango, an instrument very
similar to the ukulele. As is common
here, she had affixed a pan flute to the neck of it, so she could play them
both simultaneously.
After this performance, I of
course offered her a coin. 50 centimos
is common, or about 19c, but I gave her a Sol, or about 38c. Strangely enough, after she accepted the coin,
she reached into a shoulder bag and handed me two small boxes of mint candies. She had an unusual marketing technique going –
she wasn’t selling her music, she was selling candy. She was just using the music to get ahead of
the hundreds of other candy-sellers.
She sold quite a bit of it
over the next minute, and then she was gone.
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