Thursday, August 9, 2012

How many tomatoes = daily bread

How many tomatoes does it take to support a family?

Many of the marginal folks in Zambia have developed a way to purchase a commodity here for 10 cents each and sell it there for 11 cents each (obviously this is just an example using US currency).  For the smallest of profit margins these folks will re-locate a needed item from far away (important if you do not have any kind of transport) to nearby which allows them to charge just a little more and make a living.

Many women do this with tomatoes.

You will see them on the side of the road.  Perhaps they have a little table with a large display of tomatoes on it; sometimes these women only have a large basket of tomatoes.  Their neighbors, who don't have enough money to pay a lot more for the convenience of having these tomatoes close by, will pay just a little bit more to purchase what they need.

These entrepreneurs have no overhead since they simply set up on the side of the road.  They pay no taxes since they are not officially a business.  And they pay no workers because it is a one woman operation.

From these tomatoes a family is supported; often more than one family since the woman often has to pay someone to watch her children at home.

Perhaps at the end of a day this woman will have the equivalent of $1.  At a penny a tomato she must sell 100 tomatoes a day to earn her dollar.  At the end of the week she may pay her help $1. 

This is what 'marginalized' looks like in tomatoes.

Give us this day our daily bread, we pray.  Lord, please help me sell 100 tomatoes today.  AMEN

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