The informal market

I think maybe I will really have melded into Brazilian culture when I am comfortable buying underwear from a street vendor. I haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet but it is EVERYWHERE. It is usually men selling it too. A big pile of all sorts of underwear in a variety of colors just heaped onto a table on a street corner or down an alley. And of course the underwear man is usually next to the ice cream man who is next to the man selling homemade TV antennas who is next to the man selling little cups of coffee and cigarettes, next to the guys selling the fish they just caught, next to the man selling drain strainers. A whole table full of drain strainers. It makes me wonder how the heck people get into their branch of the market. Do they wake up one day and decide they will start selling drain strainers?