Yvonne Ellitson, mother of three, shows off her stock of mangoes. Ellitson is a vendor in the Bog Walk gorge in St Catherine. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer

THEY ARE there every time you drive by, stretching out their arms, hoping you'll buy some of their produce.

Women mostly, but children too.

Some people tend to think of them as pests, winding up their windows as they drive by or simply looking the other way and ignoring them.

Very hard-working

However, that has not fazed the persistent vendors in the Bog Walk gorge in St Catherine.

They hold their heads high and think of themselves as hard-working like anyone else.

Their jobs are even a little more dangerous and stressful than most might believe. Unlike many of us, they have no lunch or coffee breaks on the job and no comfy office seats.

The briefcases they take to work are just buckets with neatly stacked mangoes and other fruits or soft drinks.

For them, work has no boundaries. In just the blink of an eye, a vendor can transform his occupation into something completely different if a life depends on it.

Yvonne Ellitson, a mother of three, has been one of those vendors. Ask her how long she has been there and you'll get this response.

"Me de yah from mi inna mi mother womb," she said.

She's been hit by a car, robbed and insulted by passers-by, but she keeps at it.

With her very limited education, it is the only career she has known, and it is what her children depend on.

Livelihood

By just selling mangoes and a few other seasonal fruit, such as sweetsop and guinep, from her stall in the corner of a rock, she has sent all her three children to school.

That includes putting a daughter through university without the assistance of a student loan.

Ellitson is in the gorge from 8 every morning until dark trying to entreat her speeding customers to buy.

"Mi haffi mek my children get weh me never get," the 39-year-old single mother said.

gareth.manning@gleanerjm.com