Please pass by

It is the habit of the Iquitos venders, regardless of what they are vending; cigarettes, t-shirts, lottery tix (?), pictures of who knows what, taxi rides, dinners, internet use, . . . you get the picture; it is their habit to be annoying. Not cute annoying like me, but persistent annoying like telemarketers or those who offer to wash your windshield at red lights. They intrude on your space and make you uncomfortable until you cry, "uncle" or are forced to find some other way to dismiss them. There is a certain street vender who doesn´t sell anything tangible, but they still want your money. They are called various names around the world but you will recognize them by the moniker, begger. They are vending their absence in exchange for some money. "pay me and i´ll go away" is the implied offer, but pay them or not, they are soon back.

It became our habit when confronted by this particular type, well any type for that matter, of vendor to take one of 2 approaches. One was to smile and politely say, "no, gracias" and continue walking, the other was to ignore them completely. Ignoring them was 100%effective, especially when walking, but when sitting at a sidewalk cafe it got old having vendors stand in our personal space. So to expedite things we chose the simple, no gracias. Often, however, even this approach required a followup, which was a wave of the hand accompanied with, "pasa", or pass by.

On this particular sunny morning we were walking toward the square for about the 1000th time with no jungle trip, our budget shot, little sleep and even less patience, when we were approached by a couple of beggars, for about the 10,000th time.

Habits can change. Emily skipped right over polite and ignoring and went right to a firm "pasa". One ´vender´moved on, but the other was undeterred and turned and began to follow us. I say ´began´ because he really only took one step. For Emily, it was one step and one plea too many. She turned and inventing a new approach to vendors. She lunged and barked at the startled beggar, "PASA!!!!".

It is doubtful this approach will change the habit of this individual, but it did momentarily make him jump back to the safety of his partner. His astonishment was shortlived and with strength in numbers these two gave us the best chiding ever given by a couple of 10 year olds.