These are not the best of times for market vendors. The overwhelming majority of them are women, many are single parents with young children, their attendant responsibilities extending way beyond plying their demanding trade in municipal markets across the country.
Janice Cornette has been vending fruit and vegetables at the Anna Regina Market on the Essequibo Coast for the past two years. This is just one of the pursuits which this 37-year-old mother of two girls has undertaken in order to make ends meet.
Before venturing into vending, Janice ran a modest kitchen garden, cultivating vegetables and selling them in the Richmond Village neighbourhood where she lives. That apart, she has taken a tilt at the beauty industry, braiding hair and selling hair accessories as well as “small things” for children… “Anything that I know would sell.” Christmases, Janice says, were not at all bad. That is the season of demand for ‘fancy’ hairdos.
