We had just come from one of the main tourist attractions in Bogotá, Colombia, the glitzy, Museo de Oro (Gold Museum). It was the evening rush hour and we were waiting to cross a busy intersection near the TransMilenio bus station.
Suddenly a young man carrying a box of white bread sandwiches and cups of milk rushes through the crowd, apparently rushing to catch his bus. He stumbled on the curb and crashed to the ground, sending his snacks spilling to the ground.
I looked at his face and his lip started to quiver. The poor guy! There went his entire night’s pay, all of the milk pouring down the gutter, and sandwiches in a jumble on the dirty street!
I fell to the ground offering to help clean up, “Necesita ayuda?” I grabbed one of the cups. He put out his hand to stop me and push me away, just as the tears started to fall from his eyes. I backed off and dropped the cup. Clearly he was close to a breakdown, and I felt it best to keep my distance. We crossed the street feeling awful for the guy.
As we waited in line for our bus tickets, we saw him from the corner of our eyes, still having a near panic attack near the pile of food. Kevin’s dad said, “We should have given him some money… That was his entire night’s pay.” We were torn, I’d tried to help him and he’d pushed me away. But I regretted not handing him a few dollars.
The line to the bus station was long because of the evening rush, but he stayed in our mind as we boarded. After a few minutes, Kevin asked me, “Maybe I’m just jaded, but was that an act?” I agreed to the possibility, though the thought felt cruel. Then I pushed the thought aside as we dealt with interpreting Bogotá’s metro map and figuring out how to get to our hotel.
Finally, we pushed through the crowd and boarded a crowded bus. As we left the station, I scanned the street and noticed the sandwich vendor was still on the corner, more than 10 minutes later, sitting on the curb holding his head in his hands. At that moment, I saw a man approach him and hand him a small bill which he gladly accepted. Again, he reached over to the pile to start to clean it up, pulled back, and started crying out in desperation, his hands covering his face. Another woman came over and handed him some change.
This is when I realized that of all the Bogotá street vendors, no one was selling cups of milk and white bread sandwiches!
We were now certain it was a scam. For the price of a loaf of bread and some milk-tinted water, someone could make several times more by playing off the sympathies of people like me. The scammer could then pick up his bread, fill his cups with more water, and start the performance again somewhere else.
I appreciate street performers. Seeing their creativity and antics can make a visit to a tourist center a memorable one. (One of my favorites is the San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf Bushman, who stands perfectly still, made up to look like a shrub, then scares the crap out of unsuspecting visitors by jumping out on the sidewalk!)
And I LOVE street vendors. I will buy almost anything edible that is sold from a cart.
But I don’t love being ripped off! The last thing I want to do is encourage this kind of parasitic behavior.
How to avoid being caught up in this scam?
- Don’t be cruel. If you see someone fall, ask if he is hurt and if he needs help cleaning up. If he truly is a rushed street vendor trying to catch his bus, he’ll let you help him clean up so he can move on with minimum embarrassment.
- Stand back for a minute. Watch him interact with other people offering to help. If he hangs back enjoying the sympathy, he’s clearly got other plans.
[Thanks to Kevin for the lovely cartoons]
Have you ever been scammed while traveling? And who thinks Kevin should NOT quit his job to become a cartoonist?
LOVE the drawing! Glad you avoided being scammed in the end. I wonder how many “accidents” his sandwiches can withstand before they become unusable.
Hehe, they did not appear to be recyclable 🙂
Not a bad article but I will say the following;
Who are you to dictate how he should make his money? Are you offering jobs in Colombia or startup money so people can buy a stall to sell from? If you are not doing anything like that would you prefer to be robbed for your money?
I think you need to understand that without money, some people simply don’t eat.
Thanks for your comment, you bring up an excellent point. It’s one we’ve address time and again on this site. Economic necessity drives decisions of livelihood and sometimes people make less than perfect decisions, but I certainly don’t hold it against them. In this case, I simply had to consider whether I wanted to pay to support the choice that he had made. And I don’t. (You may have a different opinion on that.) If I were to give him money for that, I’d be giving him incentive to do more of it, and I’d be incentivizing others to do the same. That’s not the world I want to live in, so I’m voting with my pocketbook. After re-reading the article, I still think we were pretty fair to this guy, deeming only his behavior “parasitic,” and otherwise reserving judgment.
I believe you’re implying a false choice here by suggesting that this guy’s only alternative to pretending to have spilled the bread and milk was to commit robbery. I suggest to you that this guy did, indeed, have more options than this. The most obvious, of course, is to have sold actual food like so many hardworking vendors across the city.
And in case it wasn’t clear, I didn’t mean to suggest that Bogotá is not safe or worth visiting. It is a wonderful city full of good people, rich culture, and it’s a perfectly safe. I look forward to visiting again one day soon.
I came across some clever guys in Italy, who were doing one of those shell game tricks, but they had a planted guy pretending to be one of the customers, who would complain that they were scamming him, and he’d ask people who were walking along randomly to watch the shells while he wasn’t looking, or something like that. It was a long time ago, so I can’t recall the details, but it played on your sympathies of not wanting to get ripped off, since there was a guy right there, allegedly getting ripped off, and you could help out.
Yes, that sounds similarly annoying! I hate these tricks that play on our sympathies. I’d much prefer they just be upfront about what they’re doing. And do or sell something that makes the community better. There are countless creative street vendors and performers doing the strangest things, but it’s all an honest day’s work. Even begging is better as they are honest about their intentions!