Gustavo Castellano Santana, 49 years old and hundreds of km walked in the city
A humble, happy and well-known face for those who walk around the city, always with a drawn smile in his face and full of energy to offer anyone coupons.
He told me he worked as a bricklayer but it wasn’t his thing and after the economical breakdown of Spain during 2008 he found the chance to quit the profession.
A survivor, with a working desire. In October of 2013 after a previous formation and after achieving secondary school by Radio Ecca he started to sell coupons in OID, legal coupons, but small in comparación with the national enterprise ONCE.
He doesn’t remember the first cuppon he sold, but he remembered it was on Friday. He hasn’t delivered too many prizes, the biggest amount has been 500 €, not too much from that.
Each day, at 3.30 pm, he starts his walk from his house to the Muelle Deportivo to start selling coupons.
A daily walk of approximately 10 km and around many restaurants and pubs. He finishes his work at 10 pm, at night, exhausted from smiling and with an average of 50 coupons sold.
To my mind comes plenty “No, thanks’ he has to suffer each day but I’ve never felt a piece of disappointment in his face.
After the lockdown, Gustavo had to sell half of the amount of coupons used to sell but he was walking the same amount of kilometres to get 25 coupons sold. We are talking about a total of 25 coupons in 7 hours… A coupon each 16 minutes. It’s better if I don’t tell you how much money he get per ticket!
I used to speak a lot with Gustavi, I consider him as my friend, I think he is.
He loves music and he has a good taste in it.
We usually talk about it.
Nowadays, Gustavo has needed a break because he cannot manage these long walks anymore. He’s a fighter and even now he just wants to keep selling anything, maybe plants, he doesn’t really know what, but he wants to recover that smile to the customers and rest for a while.
I wish Gustavo received the half of smiles he offers to everyone, the half of his passion.
If you meet him in the middle of the Street, say hello and tell him he’s an important part of the city, because he is, Gustavo represents humbleness that’s rare to see…
Gustavo keeps walking each day and when I was going to interview him, he never stopped greeting…
