MEXICO CITY: Prudencio Diaz, a 66-year-old one-armed retiree, stuffs groceries into bags at a Mexico City supermarket, working as a "volunteer" for tips to complement his miserly pension.
Diaz is among 22,000 seniors who toil at the end of checkout lanes across Mexico, wearing aprons and hoping generous customers will hand them a few pesos for their efforts.
The retired mechanic gets the minimum pension of 1,200 pesos ($80) per month, a bit more than half the minimum wage.
"My pension is not enough. I have no problem being a volunteer packer," the former boxer said with a smile, exposing some missing teeth.
Making between $10-$20 per day in tips, Diaz can earn the equivalent of his monthly pension in a week of packing groceries.
Only a quarter of the 11 million senior citizens in Mexico -- Latin America's second-biggest economy -- receive a pension.
Many do not get any retirement benefits in their less than golden years because they worked in the informal sector all their lives, or did not contribute long enough to the pension system.
After spending his childhood raising cattle in Zacapoaxtla, a town in central Puebla state, Diaz moved to Mexico City when he was 15 years old.
Once in the mega-capital of 20 million people, he held a series of informal jobs, from carrying water bottles to truck driver and bartender at a high-end restaurant, where he made pina coladas and other cocktails.
A fan of sports, he was paid $10 per fight as a boxer. Losing his arm in an accident while working as a mechanic at the age of 25 did not stop his passion for sports -- he has run 35 marathons over the years.
Today, to make ends meet, he also sells tamales, or cornmeal dough, outside the supermarket, makes sandwiches for parties, trains young marathon runners and acts in commercials.
Despite all these jobs, "it's not enough to live," said Diaz.
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