So today, for what I think was only the third time in my life, I tried to sell to people in a market. The first two times had been in Bolivia and perhaps do not count for so much as I was only the assistant on both occasions.
On the first occasion I had helped Isaac Condori, the father of a friend, to sell home-made bread in the Huancasaya market on the border of Peru (Huancasaya was in Franz Tamayo, the neighbouring province to the one in which I was based for my fieldwork, Bautista Saavedra). We had had to get up at around 3am to take an open-top mini-bus from the town of Charazani to Huancasaya to be there to set up for 6am when the sun came up and the customers would begin arriving. Some of our sales seemed to be the result of long-established relationships with known customers (many of whom crossed the border from Peru - the border being the river Suches), and even those who Isaac did not have a relationship with, knew that there would be bread for sale. The bread sold like hot cakes. I enjoyed the experience, and as his assistant, Isaac was obliged to buy me lunch - as I recall, I had trout (though it seemed that he did so reluctantly, only after being reminded by the fellow sellers from Charazani that this was the expected behaviour of the trader towards his assistant.
On the second occasion, I assisted my friend Natalio from the highland community of Qullpani in selling alpaca meat at the nearby market of Patamanta (which is held on the same day at the Huancasaya market). Like Huancasaya, Patamanta is right next to the border with Peru and many of those who come to buy do so from the neighbouring country. My job was to check the weight of the alpaca meat while Natalio held it up using both his scales and the scales of the buyer. Although I didn't directly receive any meal in return that day, I had been staying at Natalio's house the previous few days and received many hearty meals, several of them using organs of the alpaca which if they were on sale in the UK I would have turned my nose up at (e.g. tripe, intestines), but due to hunger had learned to enjoy sufficiently to not to embarrass myself by refusing meals (though the alpaca bran soup which I had in one of the nearby communities of Llachuani as difficult to feign enjoyment of).
There were several alpaca-herding families, who I spent time with during my fieldwork, not just in the Aymara-speaking highland communities of Qullpani and Llachuani, but also a family in the upper valley (around 3,900 metres in altitude) community of Moyapampa. This was the family of Petrona Flores Mamani, who I had got to know through the Kallawaya autonomy assembly and with whose family I ended up spending time with for periods throughout my fieldwork. During my time with them I would help them planting in the fields, herding their alpacas - and once, in skinning an alpaca. Petrona's family had a loom in their house and made alpaca-wool scarves at home, which Petrona would take to La Paz and try to sell. I bought a scarf from them in my first week of fieldwork, which served me well, and several more in my last week which I took back to the UK with me and gave to friends and relatives as presents.
After I had been back in the UK for around a year I managed to find Petrona and her daughters on facebook. It wasn't long before one of Petrona's daughters began trying to persuade me to try to sell in the UK the garments which her family makes. After a year trying get s student society interested in taking this on as a project, and eventually realising this was a dead end, I decided that I would take the bull by the horns and put my own money in to try to sell them myself. The first package came over in May in the luggage of a friend who was travelling from Bolivia. I thought it would be difficult to sell any at all in the summer, but was pleasantly surprised when, after informing the Collaborative Anthropology group about the scarves two lecturers and one fellow Phd student bought scarves straight away. One of the lecturers went crazy for them, emailing me to bring the scarves to her office immediately, as soon as she found out about them. She was almost certainly more excited than I had ever seen a fellow human being on the topic of scarves. "Do you know how many bags of scarves, I have?" she asked me. "Eleven bags of scarves! And those are just the ones I had to give to charity because I had too many scarves" (I am paraphrasing a little). My first thought was that she clearly had a problem which could not solved by the purchase of more scarves. To my good fortune, however, her analysis did not concur with mine, and not only purchased some for herself and as gifts, but filled my head with grand dreams of opening an emporium of alpaca scarves.
As Christmas began approaching in November I asked Petrona to send more scarves, and this time hats, and at the same time asked the Social Anthropology school President to inform the undergrads. When she told me she had forwarded an email from me to 588 undergraduate students I expected myself to be overwhelmed. But so far the deluge has been... slow. By then I had already paid a deposit on a space to sell the scarves at a market in a local school in St Andrews, on what turned out to be St Andrews day. I had been worried about not having enough stock after selling some to students, but luckily another box arrived three days before the market. On the day it was bleak. Windy and rainy and I had to carry a card table with my to the venue in addition to the hats and scarves.
When I arrived, I had been unable to find the organiser of the market, Janet, who I assumed would tell me where my pitch would be for the day, but I was advised that it didn't matter, and to just find a vacant spot. I set my table (a small card table which I had been able to carry from home) up between two ladies sell what I think I could categorise as knick-knacks, and they were to be my companions for the afternoon (or from 11-4, the hours of the market). The lady of one side was selling scented textiles made into the shape of animals (dogs, mostly), other ornaments shaped to appear like ducks, Christmas wreaths, and 1930s-style hats. The lady on the other side was selling coasters, cards and cushions imprinted with various designs. Some of the designs showed animals, such as dogs (she proclaimed at one point in the afternoon, when a dog-walker went past, that she was a dog person), and drawings of East Nuak villages and St Andrews. By far the most popular of her items, she told me, were those with the drawings of St Andrews on them, which perhaps give a sense both a sense of St Andreans pride in their town and the general perceived attractiveness of it.
They were both very friendly towards me and the lady on one side gave me not just two cups of tea to keep me warm, but also a (small) free gift when I took an interest in the various nice smelling things she was selling. Although I felt very much like an outsider, this being my first attempt at market selling on my own and my very first in the UK,feeling like a novice surrounded by experts, my neighbours brought me into the fold. They gave me advice on the positioning of my table (that I should try to move it forward, closer to the people walking past), the presentation of my wares (that I move my (rather amateurish) sign up to make it more visible, and that I make clear that the alpaca scarves and whatnot were Bolivian. They also encouraged me as the day went on, telling me that I was gaining in confidence when I actively greeted passers-by, and tried to engage them in conversation. We were also united by our common experience of the cold.
Before the fair I had tried to think about what I needed to make my table attractive. I printed out a photo of Petrona,which I taped to a Bolivian aguayo (for these purposes, a tablecloth). I also printed out an A4 piece of paper on which I had written in big letters "Alpaca scarves and hats". Only later did it occur to me that I needed to have written "Bolivian alpaca scarves and hats", to make clear their provenance. One thing I did not do was to write down the prices of the items. I had considered this as a possibility, but had, I think,taken the Bolivian markets as my guide. I could not recall ever seeing prices for similar items in Bolivian markets,and so decided not to attach visible prices to mine, on the basis that if someone was interested they would ask the price, and I would be perfectly open to haggling.
I sold two large scarves all day long. One to a librarian, who I recognised and who recognised me, and who it was therefore easy to strike up a conversation with, and another to a friend from the Social Anthropology department who I could have sold to in the department anyway. The ladies at the stalls either side of mine put the blame largely on my lack of visible pricing for my lack of success. When Janet appeared late in the day she also remarked that this may have been a factor. She told me that women like to see prices or they won't take an interest in the products. Men might approach to ask, but women would not. She was probably right. I think only one or two people approached to ask about prices. Others I volunteered the prices to myself.
The size and location of the table may also have been a factor. The fact that I had such a small table meant that if I was near the table then nobody could approach to look at the items without my presence. I tried moving the table forward and backwards and backwards, and eventually put an aguayo down on the floor in front of the table with scarves on to spread things about a bit. The fact that it was cold and rainy outside - and we were outside ourselves in the courtyard of a school, did not help to attract customers, and it not until I had been at the stall for a good two hours that there was much footfall at all.
It's a learning process though... I will be attempting it again in two week's time, thankfully next time inside in a place where they will give me a table.
