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.
No comments:
Post a Comment