The anatomy of averting the street hawker’s gaze
You must avoid eye contact at all cost
The design of this city is one such that you must encounter street hawkers the moment you step out of your house. And for people who can choose not to leave their houses for a long period, how does it feel to be God’s favourite?
For some background story, I call Lagos home and there was a time when I used to gladly give out this information with such glee and pride freely — unprovoked, but in recent years, I can’t say the same thing; nonetheless, I digress.
Now, there are rules to hawking, but the most important rule is that there are no limitations on what may be hawked. You name it: board games (chess, ludo, etc.), door mats, fiction and nonfiction books, bottled water, wristwatches, small chops, handkerchiefs, nonalcoholic beverages, stationery, newspapers, mopping stick, fruits, artworks, kitchen utensils, sweets, wall frames, travelling boxes, mosquito nets, snacks, mobile phone chargers, socks, toiletries, medication, fashion accessories, petrol, etc. With their goods aesthetically displayed on their heads or hands, wearing hearts on their sleeves and steady limbs, the sky is their limit.
So, it is a Tuesday morning and I am on my way to a meeting, peering through the car window while listening to Minshawi’s Al-Ahzab to calm my nerves and then, the first hawker glides in between the car I’m in and another one on the right. Mind you, I am present but lost in thought at this moment, so out of curiosity, I look to my right, but the first hawker had floated off in search of serious clients, leaving me in the hands of the second hawker, with whom I had established eye contact.
Let the record show that I had no intention of buying anything in traffic that morning. All I wanted was to make it to the meeting, but alas! the eye contact has a way of drawing you in a way that you either feel pity, guilt or amusement because as I stated earlier, wearing their hearts on their sleeves is how you, the buyer is made to commit to a lifetime of closing a sale with them.
Anyway, this hawker, who has taught me how to deliver better pitches under intense pressure, sold stationery. I didn’t need a pen, but this hawker convinced me not only by mentioning how the pen suited my outfit but also by the benefits of the pen and how it would write smoothly regardless of the surface. Now, who wouldn’t want that?
Considering it made my day, I like to think making the eye contact was a good deal that ended in a win-win case for both parties.
