More on what people do to earn money

Haven't been able to access the blog because the place I am staying blocks a lot of stuff, This is from August 3:

In a mega-city there are seemingly an infinite number of ways to make a living. One man makes a living, and a very good living, looking at city maps to see where small roads are. He then looks for places where a road is planned and not yet build. Then he goes and checks it out. If the land is indeed not already built on he just takes it and builds something there and then sells it. Since land costs in this city are very high he makes an extremely good profit. Pretty slick, eh? About a block away is a narrow, three story high church building built within the last couple of years on such a piece of land. Next to the building where I am staying is another small piece of land which apparently falls into that same category. He has recently put up a fence around it, threatening those nearby (including the owners of this building) not to interfere or he will send his thugs to cause trouble. Comforting thought.

One popular way to earn a second income after one’s regular day job is to sell food. By late afternoon the streets start filing with push carts, bicycles and motorbikes, and temporary road-side stalls selling things like bread and cake, noodle dishes, fresh vegetables, ice cream, meatballs, and all sorts of other cooked foods. Yesterday on my little jaunt down the side street there was a guy on the side of the road with a frying pan on a burner frying batter-dipped chicken to sell. A little ways down from him was a tent where somebody was selling fish and rice dinners. Today we were working late so went down to see what the breadseller on a motorbike had today. He still had about 6 half-loaves of sliced white bread and two of sliced green bread. (Yes, bright apple green bread.) He had smaller breads filled with things like cheese, chocolate, bananas, peanuts. There was one kind that had a raisin or two in it too.

Last week the newspaper ran a story about a certain lane on one particular major road. That lane has a reputation for being full of nails causing tire punctures and so drivers avoid it, thus causing the rest of the road to be quite congested. When police finally went to investigate, they found several kilos of nails scattered for quite a distance on that lane. They have been going out early in the morning to sweep that lane – and continue to find several kilos more nails every day. They suspect that someone is trying to make a living, either because they have a tire repair business nearby or because they hope to benefit by robbing stranded cars. (See? All it takes is a little imagination…)