Hermanas Rivera · Dulce Heredia
Heredia, Costa Rica
“Antes nos pisábamos sin querer. Ahora cada novia recibe la misma respuesta, salga la conversación de la que salga.”
Story · Single mother · Puebla, Mexico
Marisol
Tamales La Dona · Homemade tamales by order
Online store
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Reminders
“Before, night caught me with masa on my hands and the phone at my ear. Now when I finish the last tamal, the day ends too.”
- Marisol
Tamales La Dona is a homemade tamal service by order. Marisol cooks on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays in her kitchen and delivers on Saturdays across neighborhoods in northern Puebla: La Paz, San Manuel, Bosques de San Sebastián. On Sunday mornings she runs a fixed stand on the corner of her street.
She is from Tehuacan. She arrived in Puebla at 22 looking for work and ended up cleaning offices. She started bringing tamales to sell to coworkers, and one day an office client asked whether she delivered at home. From there, it never stopped.
“I cooked with the phone stuck to my ear. One hand in the masa, the other on the phone. Friday would arrive and I had 180 unanswered messages and the kids waiting for me to warm dinner. My mom would tell me, "mija, you are losing a sale while talking to me."”
- Marisol
“For Mother's Day last year I got 230 orders in three days. I said yes to everyone because I did not want to lose sales. I ended up delivering 40 dozen wrong. One client returned three trays because I had confused her with another woman with the same name. That Sunday I cried behind the stand.”
- Marisol
What changed
One afternoon she sat down with her older sister and gave the bot everything she had in her head: prices by dozen, flavors, delivery neighborhoods and costs, cooking and delivery times, what happens if someone does not pick up, and what she does not do, like night deliveries or Monday deliveries. She uploaded photos of each tamal type. She connected a small order link so people could choose and pay without asking first.
Marisol no longer answers messages with masa on her hands. People open the link, choose their dozens, pay, and done. When someone asks something outside the script, like whether she has green mole or whether they can pick up instead of delivery, the bot answers. Marisol checks the phone twice a day: in the morning with coffee and before bed, to confirm special orders and see what needs approval. She has not mixed up an order again. The kids eat warm dinner. Her mom stopped scolding her.
“I thought clients would feel cold talking to a machine. That they would say, "this woman thinks she is too important now, she does not answer." The first week I sent an audio explaining: "the one speaking is my assistant Lula, I am still here, and what she does not know she passes to me." Nobody complained. One client told me she felt attended to for the first time.”
- Marisol
Some clients send long audios explaining that their grandson is getting married and that is why they want special tamales. The bot processes them well, but Marisol prefers to answer those herself.
“Lula understands the audios, but those audios are mine.”
- Marisol
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