Today Lady Hiva learned that she does not, I repeat, does NOT want to ever be a street vender. The customers are too vicious!
Our LDS Stake had a ‘Christmas Bazaar’ at the chapel. People within the Stake brought all of their homemade specialties—both food and goods—to be sold for extra Christmas cash. Hiva was asked to bake some cookies and do a demonstration on how she made them. Hiva does not need anyone to tell her twice before she is convinced making cookies is a good idea.
With Halloween just around the corner and it happens to be Lady’s favorite holiday (I am not sure why, this is the one sentiment we do NOT share. GOOOOO CHRISTMAS!) so she spent a majority of the day baking Aunt Heidi cookies, of course a favorite wherever we go, and spider cupcakes. It was my job to glue the little paper spiders we had cut on the Cricut onto sticks. Lady then asked if I would do the frosting webs but when she saw that my lines were shaky she changed her mind and told me to just put them in the pan when she was done. In my defense I had only eaten a cucumber for breakfast and had a reason to be shaking! But the release from my duties gave me time to go eat something more sustainable while watching her concentrate on those lines.
When we got to the chapel, the place was packed already with wares. A few people moved over their stuff to make room for Hiva’s goods and as they uncovered the pans it was like throwing a piece of bloody meat into a cage of starved sharks! People came from EVERYWHERE wanting some.
Now as a side note, Hiva worried all week about charging people for the cookies. She would just rather give them away. She settled on selling them for 1 peso a piece (2 cents-ish US). Then this morning as she baked she announced that she would just have them tell her their favorite scripture or sing their favorite hymn for a cookie. So that was what I was expecting, but neither of us was prepared for the attack.
So I stepped out of the way to not get trampled and to get some photos. One of the elderly ladies in the ward decided she was going to buffer the people—little did we know she was doing that because she wanted to buy the rest of the cookies herself! Haha. Soon the cookies were going for 5 pesos each. Hands were coming from all directions people vying for this one or that one. Hiva, still cutting Aunt Heidi cookies, looked up in alarm and said, “Get over here and help!”
So I stood there with my hand out and people kept dropping money. There were so many cookies going out and hands everywhere I am not sure who paid and who didn’t! About five minutes into this almost all of Hiva’s goods were gone and she had not even done her demonstration yet! The Matron ‘buffer,’ who was now taking money too, and one of the other ladies covered the cookies and told everyone they were gone. Slowly the crowd died down after a few people got their hands slapped by Matron ‘buffer’ when they tried to see if the cookies were REALLY all gone!
Hiva and I went around to see what everyone else had to sell. As we walked Lady Hiva expressed her shock of the selling experience and informed me she did not appreciate that I had ‘left her to the wolves to fend by herself!’ One of the ladies was selling Ginataan Halo-halo, a coconut milk soup with taro, bananas and other sweet ingredients. Lady has been craving it for months since she had some at the Hidden Valley Springs. She was SO excited. We both took a bite and savored it’s flavor. Hiva asked for a photo—something that rarely happens, so that tells you how excited she was. As she held is up close to her face for the photo she said, “Oh there is an ant in here!” She plucked it out and stirred the soup and several more ants floated up…well, those two bites were good anyway!
It was time for Hiva’s demonstration on how to make Aunt Heidi cookies…again the crowd swarmed. Hiva’s explanation was brief, considering the cookies were already made. How much can you really say, “Add the ingredients, stir, put in the pan, and cook!” The ‘wolves’ did not seem to mind the brevity and once again the hands and yelling started. Hands were slapping other hands, people were pushing, oh the chaos! No wonder the British and Americans love lines.
Hiva was all sold out 30 minutes after we had been there. For the next hour or two we walked around and talking with people. It was fun to watch one little girl being really possessive of ‘her’ chair and push it everywhere she went. I moved it once while she was not looking to see what her reaction would be and she was NOT pleased with me! Lady Hiva spent all the pesos she had earned buying a whole bunch of things we really don’t need…but hey, Merry Christmas, right!
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