We stopped at one of the few traffic lights and were immediately swarmed with street vendors who did their best to get us to crack the windows of the air-conditioned cab. Rafael waved to one dwarf kid who had to stand on tiptoe to peer in through the window. She was dressed in ragged track pants and a grubby sweater and held a cardboard tray filled with cigarette packages, candies, home-recorded copies of chips that bore what looked like badly scanned sports team logos, and toy-sized jaguar and serpent figures made from garishly colored plastic.