Buying petrol
Serve yourself doesn't exist here in Florianopolis. Your tank is filled for you, your oil and water are checked and your windscreen is washed. This is all done with very friendly service and probably a bit of 'bate-papo' as well - i.e. chat.
Today, buying petrol included a chat with two young men who wanted to talk to me about the good money you can earn in England, Portugal, Australia and New Zealand. Evidently they have three friends who left this beautiful place to go and earn their fortunes abroad and seem to be doing just that. They said that their friends were able to send money home to their relatives and would never return to Brazil. I found this sad. There is still a big gap between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' here in Brazil.
Serve yourself doesn't exist here in Florianopolis. Your tank is filled for you, your oil and water are checked and your windscreen is washed. This is all done with very friendly service and probably a bit of 'bate-papo' as well - i.e. chat.
Today, buying petrol included a chat with two young men who wanted to talk to me about the good money you can earn in England, Portugal, Australia and New Zealand. Evidently they have three friends who left this beautiful place to go and earn their fortunes abroad and seem to be doing just that. They said that their friends were able to send money home to their relatives and would never return to Brazil. I found this sad. There is still a big gap between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' here in Brazil.
posted by Jenny Mackness at 1:24 PM
2 Comments:
Agree with your sadness but travel is a really hard thing to weigh up for the benefits and otherwise. Remember the conversation that you, me and Chris R had about global travel and its ups and downs?
We can't be in a position where we decide for other people what they should do / have but once some contact is made, life and expectations can change. Writing this, I think that it might tend to be a one way process (in general anyway) with the 'poorer' and/or 'native' cultures tending to become desirous of the what the generally affluent West has.
On the news today, an article mentioned that in Australian Aboriginal communities, the abuse of females has become almost endemic. Is this really because Cook, Tasman and others sailed around the oceans? Should isolated communities in Brazil, Indonesia, Andaman be deliberately left isolated?
Sorry - I don't know the answers either! (Although some would have strong views without really examining all the facets of global interactions)
Yes I remember the conversation clearly. On the plane over, I was thinking about how many trees I would have to plant to compensate for the flight!
When we lived here before (for 7 years) I hoped that we had managed to enrich the lives of some of the local (and much poorer) people who were our neighbours, just as they had enriched ours. But maybe I was deceiving myself.
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