Arrested Development - Ex-Pats Mexico

By Nancy Davies
Commentary from Oaxaca
August 17, 2009

A plague of ambulatory vendors annoy the tourists sipping cappuccinos in the Oaxaca zócalo. Beneath the cafe umbrellas vacationers, often with their families, don’t want to be pestered. They have disposable money; smart vendors head for the “whities”. The peddlers, here called ambulantes, have changed. A decade ago I could greet the same few — a family who sells homemade candy, Jorge who sells rebozos, AltaGracia who sells place-mats and table runners—all “inherited” their peddler’s licenses from parents, or so they tell me. During 2006, they suffered —no tourists, no sales. AltaGracia, a vital woman with a nice smile, lost almost all her teeth in the past two years.

http://www.narconews.com/Issue59/article3770.html

It sounds like a pretty tough life for those vendors and their family.
But like tourist like to say..."they are nice, friendly and always happy people"...as they walk away in search of cheap meals and souvenirs and on to better things.