IT’S A FAMILY SPOT Vendor benefits from parents’ goodwill
Christine Bantin has been selling at the same spot for 45 years. She inherited the vending trade from her parents, who used to travel weekly on the market truck from St Ann to vend in Coronation Market.
“Me used to get up really early with them and make the trip here. A my bread and butter this, enuh,” she said.
“A lot of people will turn up their nose, but it pays the bills and can be more profitable than an office job,” she said as she organised her ginger in a heap.
It is hard to not get the sniffles as she runs her hands through a huge heap of Scotch bonnet pepper, for which Bantin said there are ready buyers.
“Pepper is in demand now because a time ago come when it get scarce, so people buy it nuff and make sauces and so on,” she told THE STAR.
Scotch bonnet isn’t Bantin’s only bestseller. Customers flock her stall for portions of Irish potato, okra and cabbage. Unlike other higglers, she isn’t plagued by thieves, but she said persons are sometimes fearful to shop in the market because of pickpockets.
“Me leave my goods here and sleep all the time because me spend at least three days a market, but nuff time, the buyers dem nuh wa come in here because dem go back out without them phones or money,” she said.
“It rough sometimes because the higglers who push the carts on the outside make more money. I am OK right here so, though, because it is a family spot,” she said.
Reflecting on the past four decades, Bantin said she has no regrets and would not trade her hustling for another career.
“I have had a lot of experiences here, but most of them are good. My parents set it for me, so I inherit their buyers. Like any other job, you have good and bad days, but me nah give it up,” she said.