A Sweet Little Story

To counterbalance all of my negative comments about Brasil, past and future, here is a nice little affirmation of common decency that went above-and-beyond .

Today on my way home from the gym I stopped at a little meat market that is closer to our old neighborhood than to where we live now. I´ve only been there a couple of times in the past and I´m not sure why I went there today, since there is a similar market a block from our new apartment. But, for whatever reason, I did, and I had the butcher cut me six nice, thick slices of pork loin. For those of you in the US who are curious about living costs here, the price came to about $7.65, at the current exchange rate.

I handed my debit card to the old lady at the cash register only to have her tell me that they don´t accept debit cards. Actually (this is for you, Alexandre) she told me a lot of stuff that I didn´t understand, but I clearly understood that my debit card was no good. This does happen now and then, but usually I am with Heitor and, between the two of us, we come up with the necessary money. Today I had practically no cash. But it was no big deal because I knew that my bank had a branch only a couple of blocks away and I said that I would go there, get some cash and return. The lady tried to get me to take the sack of meat. I said, "no, I´ll get the cash and return." She insisted. She said, "I trust you." Since I don´t live in that neighborhood, and didn´t know when I would be back, I was equally insistent that she keep the package and that I would return with the cash. The butcher who had cut the meat was watching this conversation with the textbook definition of a bemused look, by the way.

Oops, I left out one detail. The price was R$13.44. When the lady told me they didn´t take Visa debit cards, I naturally checked to see how much cash I had, which turned out to be only R$9.00. The woman questioned the butcher, "R$9???" with a look in her eyes as if to say, "is that close enough?" He was blocked from my vision, so I didn´t see his reaction, but I kept saying that, no, I would get the money and return.

So I did get the money and returned in less than ten minutes and the transaction was finished. I told the woman that I would remember that she had trusted me. That only started a new rapid-fire dialog on her part, of which (for you again, Alexandre) I understood very little.

For those of you who are wondering about these asides, Alexandre is my português teacher, who will only allow this much English here. And he is a vegetarian, so he probably doesn´t even approve of my visits to the meat markets. :-)

Tchau.