Francis of Francis Peluquero, a beauty shop

Francis owns and operates a small beauty shop in Jerez de la Frontera near the city´s central market.   When I went to interview him, there were several customers but this was at the time of Feria, when “everyone” wants to get their hair done. 

Before the crisis, when a special event was going on, the wait could well be an hour and a half or two hours if you didn´t have an appointment.  On the day I went, however, there was less than a 30 minute wait – the first effect I noticed of the crisis.

Inside Francis Peluquero.  Francis did not want any faces shown.

 Francis has been in business for over 20 years.  He commented to me that things are slower now than they have ever been.  Going to the beauty shop is not a necessity, like food, and that has contributed to the downturn of his business.  People who before would come in twice a week now come in only once a week, and so forth.

It´s been a long time since he was able to go on a trip, or even take a vacation.  He has two young women working for him during busy times, such as during the annual Feria, because his customers don´t like to be kept waiting and if he doesn´t have the two young women, he won´t have any business at all.  When there is no special event going on, he is no longer able to have anyone help him out.

Francis believes it´s going to take a long time for Spain to recover from the crisis.  He does not believe the government´s statement that things will start getting better in another year.  Beyond that, he doesn´t want to speculate about what will happen in the future.

OUR NEXT POST will be about José Luis Delgado Herrapiscazo and his shop.

Malena and Butikalé

Malena opened her shop just two months ago – a courageous move in view of the current crisis.  It´s called Butikalé, and is located in Jerez de la Frontera on a major street two doors down from her father´s bar/restaurant.  She opened it with money that her husband saved, and she runs it with her adult daughter.

The day I interviewed her, she was just opening the store for the day.  There were customers waiting for her to unlock the door…but the two other times that I tried to find her, when her daughter was running the shop, there were no customers at all.

Malena in her shop.

The customers waiting for Malena – two women with their children – made some purchases.  One bought a blouse, a pair of long pants, and a necklace which together cost under 10 Euros (about $13).  Clearly, the prices are designed to move merchandise. I´m not sure how she is able to offer these low prices, but she purchases from a distributor in Sevilla and apparently, is getting very low prices herself.

The customer wanted to buy other things, but didn´t have the money.  Malena explained, after the customer had left, that the purchaser had a job with the school district, but the school district was not paying its employees – a shocking but unfortunately common occurrence since the onset of the crisis.

The other customer, also a school district employee (and also not getting paid), made a very small purchase of one necklace for 3 Euros ($5).

Malena commented that yes, the first year is always the hardest for a small business and December and January are the worse months.  She has not yet been able to pay herself any salary at all, but she is covering her costs.

She says that things now are particularly hard.  Many people don´t even have enough money for food, and are going hungry or getting food from charitable agencies (I assume these would be the Catholic charities that are so important here).  And most people don´t have the money to buy clothes for themselves or for their children.

Malena thinks that if things continue on like this for a year or two, people will be patient but if they continue on for, say, five years, there will be a war or revolution.

OUR NEXT POST will be about Francis, the beauty shop owner.

Small businesses in Spain and the economic crisis

It is ironic, after the so-called “Second Conquest” of Latin America by Spain during the years leading up to the current economic crisis, that the Spanish government is now courting Latin American businesses and asking them to invest in Spain, to save Spain’s economy. 

This may seem even stranger in light of the fact that the backbone of Spain’s economy is not big, multi-national  businesses, but the small mom and pop shops that abound in every neighborhood of the large cities, in every small town.  Some sources have claimed, in obvious exaggeration but with a grain of truth, that these small businesses make up 95% of Spain’s economy.

A stall in the Mercado de Abastos, in the city´s center.

 (Jerez does have supermarkets, but many people prefer to shop in the Mercado de Abastos, open six days a week.  Each stall is run by a different small business and each has its own specialties.)

And why should you, the reader of this article, who does not live in Spain and may never go there, be interested in the situation and problems faced by these small businesses?  You should be interested partly because Spain’s economic problems have an effect on Europe, and Europe affects the rest of the world.  In addition, these small businesses are not all that different from small businesses the world over, and we can learn much from looking at their plight. 

Instead of doing a scientific study, I decided to interview the owners of four small businesses in the southern Spanish city of Jerez de la Frontera, where I was staying, with the idea that this more human look at the situation would be of greater interest.  The four shops I chose are a small clothing/jewelry/cosmetics store owned and operated by Malena, a beauty shop owned by Francis, a paper goods/copy shop/school & office supply store owned by José Luis Delgado Herrerapicazo and his wife, and a bar/restaurant owned by Antonia Balao.

Plaza Plateros, a popular plaza with many bar/restaurants and lots of small shops.

Over the next four weeks, I'll publish each of these stories, one by one, allowing us to see their reactions to the economic crisis and their vision of the future…not a very positive vision.  They are all hurting.

We'll start next week with Butikalé, the clothing/jewelry/cosmetics store owned and operated by Malena.

OUR NEXT POST will be Malena´s story.

Background music

On Thursday, we recorded some of the background music for DOMINO.  We´ll have a variety of music but what we just recorded was the flamenco part--some taranto and a granaina por bulerias.  I was amazed.  For about 15 minutes worth of music, we spent a little over four hours in the sound studio.  The most complicated part was adding the percussion to the granaina.

Our cantaor (flamenco singer) was Antonio de la Malena.  He was accompanied by Malena Hijo on the guitar, and by percussionists Luis and Ali de la Tota (palmas) and Alex de Moneo (cajón, tinaja and palmas).