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As one gets deeper into the center of the city, so does the crush of vendors between cars. It seems every pedestrian is a machann, offering some good or service for sale. What US shoppers would drive to a mall to buy, commuters here can purchase on the street: TV antennas, ginger, mattresses, clothes, windshield wipers, stoves, outhouse disinfectant. "There’s no jobs, so you have to sell something," said Arnold Océan, a 32-year-old sunglasses vendor who got into komès, Haitian Creole for commerce, four years ago. "It’s better than sitting at home. You have to do it, to keep from getting into bad things. There’s no future in it," he said while making a sale on Rue du Champs-des-Mars. "But everything is jammed, so I have to do it live." Océan’s statements are backed up by numerous studies. In the absence of economic opportunities, people do whatever they have to do to get by. The quickest way to earn some money is to sell something, whether it is second-hand shoes or lip glosses from Florida, or- for the illicit- illegal drugs or one’s body. Two-thirds of Haiti’s working-age population, about 3.6 million people, are not employed in the formal sector, the CIA’s World Fact Book states. Estimates for 2003 put Haiti’s real growth rate at zero percent and the consumer prices inflation rate is 37.8 percent, according to the World Fact Book. It’s no wonder a day hardly passes without seeing the "sa se biznis pam" slogan written on a camionette, fresco cart or hole-in-the-wall restaurant. "It’s unemployment in disguise,"said Claude Beaubeuf, an economics professor at Quisqueya University and consultant. "There hasn’t been any job creation since the mid-80’s. In the provinces, it’s even worse. Agricultural production is not encouraged." The decline of the agricultural sector, Haiti’s political problems, apparent standstill when it comes to development, and migration to the capital are among the factors causing mass underemployment, Beaubeuf said. Factories that employed men such as Océan - who was a soldier about 14 years ago - disappeared in the face of unstable governments whose downfalls threatened business interests. The assembly lines and clothing companies many women depended on have shut down, leaving families to fend for themselves, observers say. The assembly sector, heavily dependent on U.S. markets for its products, employed nearly 80,000 workers in the mid-1980s, according to the U.S. Department of State’s profile of Haiti. During the embargo of 1994, employment fell below 17,000. Traditionally, women were the vendors, specializing in food products they had helped their husbands cultivate in the countryside, according to La Femme en Chiffres by Mireille Neptune Anglade. When the crops brought little, they moved into the cities to seek jobs in factories or get their hands on imported products, Beaubeuf said. Now that companies have jumped ship, more than ever, telephone chargers and carrying cases cover the walls of buildings in Pacot. Along the hills, paintings completely cover fences or take up the slivers of concrete that pedestrians use as sidewalks. With more vendors than ever, the profit margins are lower, nil for some. "Some days you sell, others you don’t," Ti Marie Jeanbas said of her vegetable business. "The sun burns you, you sleep in the dew." The mother of 10 added, "What I hope for now is for my children to leave the country. Then, maybe they can call and say they’re sending me something." Gerta Vilsaint, a peppers and onions vendor, said back when she was a child and helped her mother to sell, cars would drive up and people would get out and buy from you. That does not happen anymore and business took a dive around 1980, she said. A lot of vendors said they do not keep track of their revenues because they spend it as they earn it to feed their children and pay creditors. And since she sells many items simultaneously, Vilsaint said, even though she spends HTG 3,500 (US$ 100) on a long sack of onions that looked like it weighed about 50 pounds, for example, she does not keep track of her retail earnings. "Now that the country is stuck, you come out to the street, only to see if there’s anything," Vilsaint, 35, said. "You’re just checking." Beaubeuf said vendors do not make more than HTG 300 (US$ 8.50) weekly. The United States and other nations have pledged financial support for economic development in Haiti. But Haitians are not holding their breaths.
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