Waching daily Jun 1 2018

This is what the police does when they follow us. Look.

Sorry that I'm filming you but...

We're informal (street) sellers, not criminals.

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Let's get him in a car, no?

To the San Ignacio hospital! No, take him like that.

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At what price to you want the oblea?

2,000 or 3?

It didn't light up?

I...

and I bought but...

How much are those there?

200

Here you go mam

200

Well, I get here at 5 o'clock in the morning.

30 years

I've always worked on the street.

I've been working on the street for 22 years

I've...

done this 7 years

aaaaand...I've battled the street all this time.

here with the other companions

I've suffered a lot. The police, they've taken our things, they've run over us that way and...

the rain.

Now we don't have where to keep dry because...

and they haven't relocated us

So first I sold the obleas

it wasn't doing great so I started with the mango.

Same thing...it wasn't very good.

Everything affects us here: the water, the cold, the sun, the police

The biggest problems we face are the police...

that they won't let us work, we have to keep running

Running as if we were thieves

if we sell we have a minimum wage, if we don't sell...

if we have to hide all day we don't even sell for that day's expenses.

We pay rent, utilities

and a lot of times we can't do it because the police won't let us work.

They're gangs. They rob people. Right?

but the police officer goes after the seller.

Look. Fucked. Because with the police and everything else.

Yeah? Peñalosa (mayor of Bogotá) has us with...with the police...fucked up. Fucked up.

Change mayors or change...what? or give us jobs. Give us something but no.

The IPES (Institute for Social Economy) gives some jobs that pay the minimum

and sunday to sunday

Imagine that.

On top of that, the police doesn't let you sell.

One has to run...

and I leave this place at 10pm

so that...

so that I can take something...of substance. Home.

The government gave me the chance to have a module.

I had it for 2 years. After those 2 years I received a letter from the IDU (Institute for Urban Development) asking for permission to take the module away

while they made the 3rd phase of the transmilenio

either way, they did it

they never...

relocated us.

They never gave me anything.

So at the moment I'm selling Transmilenio tickets because I don't have how to survive.

The day to day life of a street merchant is...

Thank God I'm in this place.

Sheltered by certain things that protect me.

But...but I see that the people on the street are worse off every day.

Every day there's more police persecution.

Um...the rain is one of the factors that doesn't allow them to remain calm at their posts.

They're outdoors!

One of the other things is that they have to

go out very early to work and then go home very late

so that they can more or less make what they need for one day of expenses.

umm... the crime that has taken over this area and I imagine that all of Bogota.

The dilemma of the police on our backs all the time, harassing us, taking us out of public spaces...

Go there, come here, go that way, go this way...

I tell you, that's what's sad about the street.

You suffer a lot. What you earn has been well earned.

Peñalosa's (mayo of Bogota) orders have been to attack the vendors...

and the criminals I imagine...don't have any type of brakes.

At least that's what I see.

because everything I see...

The vendors get tickets, they get harassed...everything.

And the thieves roam as they please.

You see gangs, all that stuff around here.

We've got to look for a comprehensive social security

for all the informal vendors that have never even had a health insurance...

A real health insurance.

The SISBEN (Identification System for Potential Beneficiaries of Social Programs) has become a thing of lines and lines...

People get bored and they prefer to pass their illness with hot clothes, let's say it like that

I'm sick. I have mild osteoarthritis

And the cold...

As the saying goes, I've become friends with the illness.

If not, I wouldn't be here anymore.

I've been on the street 25 year and I've never paid for an insurance

I don't have...I've never had one.

We...live off of what we make each day and nothing more.

Nothing, nothing.

Noooo. What are you going to quote that shit for? Money from where son?

We can't make money here because the police moves us all the time, from side to side.

So what are we going to quote that?

We're going to die virgins like the saying goes.

I have SISBEN

I don't...I'm not..

I don't have anything else.

Apart from that, I have to help myself because...

My daughter has my granddaughter studying...

and well, I have to help out at home because the utilities and everything are to expensive to live with dignity.

You have to pay expensive.

We don't have anyone that supports us...

where we can make a claim, where we...

if the police comes or our things get ruined...

Let's just say: they take my cart away right now and tomorrow I have to or I HAVE to get another to come out and work.

They've got to give them guarantees

Guarantees of no police persecution...

of locating a place where they can be comfortably, with no rain, water

they could...

For me, it's a question of locating them in strategic places where there's a majority of people, clients let's call them.

So ok, what would I say?

That they relocate the people so we can work peacefully

If they let us be there...

Here, before passing the Transmilenio it would be very good because people would look for us.

But the police comes and moves us over there.

Under the trees.

Like animals. And sometimes there are some that don't talk nicely to you but...

and we're not rude, we're not jerks..

We always answer well.

We leave.

No, I mean give the informal seller the opportunity to work

and attack the crime, which is what any decent government does, right?

Put in the people that work and take out the people that don't work.

The people that are living off the ones that do work.

The little they make...

the informal vendors...

and the robbers are displacing them...

the...what are they called? the ones that ask for a rent each day.

Well, a bunch of ugly situations that happen to people on the street.

Now I've heard that...

The mayor is ordering to take our merchandise again.

I don't agree because...

those are things that have been won with effort, no?

No, that they put their pants on and take down Peñalosa from the mayor's office.

He has us...let me tell you...

They they really do the relocations that they've promised the street vendors for so long.

But that we really are made into street vendors the ones that truly deserve that place.

Because when they handed out the kiosks...

They apparently said that they were for us, the street vendors.

I've been here 25 years.

If I would have been given one of those kiosks, I wouldn't be here anymore.

But since they didn't give them to the street vendors...

they gave them to the highest bidder...

The one that had the most money to pay for it.

There are people who were never street vendors and they have the best kiosks.

From 100 street vendors

that they were going to relocate. They relocated 10.

And the rest were the ones the paid the best to have the kiosks.

First and foremost...

that they relocate them.

I would tell him, Mr. President if you want the street clean so badly...

The avenue with no vendors...

Since they rather see thieves and not vendors.

Relocate the people, help the poor, help the most needy.

The older people.

This is the informal vendors' manifesto.

Fernando Gonzalez, an informal street vendor of Chapinero (Bogota) suffered a heart attack in the repressive operation that was advanced by Enrique Peñalosa's administration in the zone.

Today he is in grave condition because of an excluding vision of the public space.

How much do I owe you for the oblea?

Ohh 2,000 pesos

Thank you so much Mrs. Mercedes. You've been too kind.

Ok. You said my name.