This is a guest post from Tosin Jerugba. Tosin is a Brazil-based Nigerian dyke refugee. She is an artist, writer and zine maker, who has given workshops on bibliodiversity and self-publishing worldwide. Her zines inhale African lived experiences and exhale a love for language, activism, and her exhaustion with the cis-tem. Just check out the whistleblowing in “Lesbian Lovebomber” or the indigenous scolding in “Why do they call it The Congo,” and you’ll see what we mean. Pocket-sized, hilarious, honest, and available in both English and Portuguese. WageTheft Part 1 is available to read in English for free at the Sherwood Forest Virtual Zine Library. 

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There lies an unwritten law and unspoken rule in Bahia that: ‘Abulantes get in for free’. It’s a public transportation rule. The reason is simply because they’re poor, and covered from head to toe in their merchandise. They are trying to get from point A to Point B to make a sale, half of the time on the bus itself. I bought my first Sonho from an Abulante on the bus. It was a Monday morning, the bus was cold, He wore an apron, Sonho was warm and I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since. Heck, I even wrote a Zine about it. 

Faced with homelessness after losing both my jobs to the spineless white Americans under Trump’s administration in November last year, I got myself into debt (buying a cute wooden kiosk), thinking I could get another job like that! In Brazil. The kiosk was to sell my art, while I waited for the job that never came.

Months later, living in a shelter and broke AF I mapped out the trip from Elevador Larceda to Terreiro de Jesus. It was simple really; I will get on the Elevator packed with tourists and my kiosk heavily sitting on my ricketty 2-wheeler wheel-barrow thingy, and walk 450 meters via Praca da Sé all the way to the spot in the historic centre of Salvador. I chose this spot because it was perfect. Had 2 rows of 5-6 traders selling derivative Pan-african merchandise and more to tourists. It was filled with curious tourists, shady trees, stray dogs, good music, and good people. The day I did this mapping, I also decided to politely ask the Military Police fucks working there how to get a license to sell. He took me to a trader-friend of his and asked. She answered me without giving too direct of an answer, and struggled to make eye contact. The gist of it was that I had to go to SEMOP (Secretaria Municipal de Ordem Pública). And so one faithful day, I did.

SEMOP Jaw Drop

The day I went to SEMOP was a hard one. I had a shitty Sonho, and had to explain to the folks at UNICAD the triggering reason that I do not have a passport, etc. Anyway, I finally made it there, and I asked how to get a license, please? The lady asked what I wanted to sell, and I handed her a cute little sack filled with my zines. 

She looked at them and showed her colleague. She then proceeded to ask what kind of kiosk I was gonna use, I showed her a picture on my shitty phone and she handed me a leaflet whilst proceeding to list out a bunch of rules, speaking rather quickly in spite of the fact that I had iterated that Portuguese was my second language. I don’t remember what a lot of the rules were, but I remember one quite clearly. I’m paraphrasing but it went something like;

You cannot sell your shit anywhere in Pelourinho or Rio Vermelho.

My jaw dropped, and I almost laughed at her face. What? I thought. For the uninitiated, Peloruinho and Rio Vermelho are historic centres and therefore tourist spots in all of Salvador. Heck, Mercado Modelo right next to Elevador Lacerda is a World Heritage site. I’ll talk about the history in a bit. Shocked, I asked her why I couldn’t sell in any of these hot spots, and she responded, telling me, “Well, basically because these places have a lot of people there and these are HISTORIC spots”.

Translation: These places are our (the government’s) money-makers, okay? These places are why people come to fucking Salvador, besides the beaches, of course. We can’t have your poor black ass pedalling, what is it? Stickers? To our big spenders. God no!

I was so dumbfounded, 

First of all; “Too many people?” Pelourinho attracts 530,000 people a year.

Secondly, “Historic spots?!” The reason these places are historic markers in the first place is because of people like me! People who look like me, and people who do what I do! The black freedom fighters of Brazil’s colonial past and the African descendants who brought their trade to these shores. What the fuck?! There are murals of us all over the elevator and around the Mercado Modelo building! The irony was outstanding! Even more so that there are literally hundreds of dark skinned folks breaking this bullshit law every day, all over the streets of these spots as we spoke. And I can bet, bitch bought her lunch today from one of these Abulantes. 

I asked her; okay I’m hearing a lot of where I CANNOT sell my shit, but where can I? And she took a pause, and stuttered as she thought: “Some beaches” she said.

This was a black woman by the way. The irony, the audacity, oh the pain for my gay autistic ass to understand what was going on. Anyway, I left with the flyer and made my way back to the shelter.

Afro-Capitalismo

The next saturday I rebelliously carried out my plan and made my way to Terreiro de Jesus in the car of a reluctant driver, thanks to my found-mother in the shelter; Cristina. Love you, Cris. 

Fun fact: I wrote this piece on the Dia da Consciência Negra 2025, and to give you a mental picture of where I was situated, or aid your Google Maps search, it is right at the side of the Catedral Basílíca de Salvador, and the trader rows are on either side of the famed statue of Zumbi dos Palmares. I found a spot to set up shop and was immediately told to move by another woman, stating it was someone else’s spot. I moved to the side and was told to move again, as another woman was helping me carry my table all the way to the end. Before that happened, though, the first woman managed to ask if I had a license to sell here? I chuckled, thinking, “License-Shmicense, we both know neither of us is allowed to sell here by law TF? Infighting? Early this morning? Really?’ Whilst after the second move, a woman came over to me to ask what I was selling, she was so transparent in her fishing attempt to determine whether or not I was competition.

In the end, I was located next to a dark-skinned woman selling bags, beads, and what have you, and an old white man, who was really the star of the show, selling handmade wooden cars of quite the variety. In front of me was a building, and on the first floor, a café. Hungrily, I watched an old white couple have breakfast, betting my life that they were retired land owners, and would soon shit out what they just ate sooner than I would have my first meal of the day. 

I spent my morning playing with the woman’s dog and watching white tourists make their way out of their hostels, rolling their tiny luggage. It got hotter and hotter, and later I went off to find a bathroom. As soon as I walked into these establishments, shops, restaurants, and what have you, I was greeted with a smile, but as soon as I asked to use the bathroom, I was looked up and down and told no without making eye contact. It was kinda funny if not entirely painful. Eventually, I found a place that said yes, which came as a surprise ‘cause it was fancy AF. The kinda fancy that had its guest stare at me a little because ‘black people don’t come here! Just the ones that work here.’ On my way back, I stopped to admire the view. Mistaken for a tourist, an Abulante greeted me in French. Realising I spoke English, he switched to Portuguese. He tried to make a sale using my very-not-from-here accent as a springboard, but of course, I couldn’t buy anything; I was here for the same reasons as him.

Pelourinho is a place for hustlers. The city of Salvador has the nation’s largest black population, and many of the white population feel marginalised even with their suffocating privilege. These are the same institutions that registered my masters-earning-ass as a person who didn’t finish high school when I tried to get my official worker’s number. The best part? They refused to change it when I asked them to. Now an investigation is going on in the INSS and I am still unemployed. Yet, since blackness has shown to have commercial value, Salvador has run with the message of being the Afro-Capital of the world, attracting voyeuristic tourists and business owners profiting from Afro, Indigenous, and Black-Brazillian culture daily. Heck, I once did those basic-ass bohemian braids for a British white woman at a black-owned salon in this same mile radius for 9 pounds.  

Without making a single sale on my zines, I left before lunch time that day. There was no way I was gonna miss a weekend lunch at the shelter for a sunburn and 0 pounds. So, using the same path I mapped out, I returned home.

And yeah, I took the bus for free.