Meaning Behind Hot-Pink Flowers

Hot-Pink Flowers
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

On Saturday morning I walked through the organic farmer's market. I saw these funky hot pink flowers for sale in one of the stalls. But I didn't buy them because it would be some hours before I got home and I feared they would wilt.

Later, walking back via that same path, I saw a little girl holding one bouquet of these flowers in each hand. Probably a street child or living in very poor circumstances. And she was cute. She was the kind of girl with long flowing locks that would get chosen to be in some international end-poverty TV commercial. Just send money and you can help her live a better life because now she can buy books for school. Or something like that. I wonder if she goes to school...

"Flowers?" she asked me.

I paused.

After all, I had wanted to buy them earlier.

"Two reais" she said (about $1.10 American). "This bunch of flowers, there's something wrong with them," she added pointing to the bouquet in her left hand. Indeed, the stalks looked a bit bruised.

"Hmm," I said, "I think I'll take the other bunch." I felt a tad guilty about not taking the flowers that looked like they would die in a few hours.

It's just that doing the math, even she managed to sell both of these, she'd make only a few dollars. I wondered where this money would go. Did she have parents or family members? Would she keep it for herself? What would she spend it on? To me, it was some spare change that I could afford to give away. But, to her...

Walking down the path, I saw more children emerge holding bouquets of flowers. Somehow I hadn't noticed them before, but now -- perhaps because of my interaction with the girl moments before -- they now were visible to me. All the flowers were distinctly similar to the options for sale earlier during the organic farmers market.

Visions of orphans from Oliver Twist flooded my brain. And I wondered how they got these flowers. Did they pick up the left-overs on the ground from the market? Did the folks just give them left-over flowers at the end? Did they get a five-finger discount? In any case, another creative way to try and make a few cents.

The flowers look pretty in a vase in the kitchen now. And I wonder where that little girl is and if she managed to sell the second bouquet.

Empties

Recycling
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

I happened to read a post on the Detroit-based blog Sweet Juniper titled, "Bootstraps" about giving empty soda bottles to a homeless guy:

"I watch him calculate a route through the darkness and snow to the archipelago of bodegas and ghetto grocery stores that impose limits on how many bottles one man may return to deter men like him from returning anything for the meager cash this labor provides. There's a plastic bag wrapped around one of his ratty tennis shoes. The old man hoists ten dollars worth of aluminum and plastic onto his back with the promise of malt liquor or a hamburger or whatever the hell he wants spurring him away from me, and I can't remember the last time I felt this ashamed."

I hadn't realized that in the US (or at least some states) there are limits on how much recycling can be cashed in on at a given time. It surprised me to read that. It's interesting also because in contrast, here in PoA, recycling seems to be an acceptable way to make a living. That's what the guy in the picture is doing. You can't see him because he's pulling the cart, but you can see all the cans in the white bag hanging at the back of the cart, likely organized into different types of recyclable material.

During my first full day here, I noticed quite a few folks on horse-drawn carts making their way through the neighborhoods, stopping at each trash receptacle and sorting through its contents until they found recyclable items. (I wasn't brave enough to take a picture; the picture on this post was about much bravery as I could muster). Later in the day, I saw professional garbage trucks picking up trash too. A. told me that both these systems work side by side with each other.

And this makes sense...why not keep it open for people to make money in legal ways, right?  A. told me a story of a woman she met in a poorer neighborhood in the city who started changing her situation through recycling. In doing so, she inspired many of the neighborhood women to do the same. They feel empowered and believe that their work is helping to save the planet...which indeed it is. Contrast that story, with the sad one from the blog above, and it's odd how making money off recycling can have so many meanings.

Do Frito Pies Translate Well into Portuguese?

So, I'm sitting in the back room of the Spider House Cafe enjoying a vegetarian Frito pie and thinking that this certainly falls into the list of dishes I'll miss when I fly over 5,000 miles southeast of Austin. This is just an assumption, but I don't expect to find this delicacy in other countries.

The cafe is cozy and packed. And I'm thrilled that I snagged a booth with access to an outlet. The guy in the booth next to me is apologetically handing me his computer cord to plug in underneath my table. "Oh, of course it's no problem," I say. I'm reacting oh-so graciously as if the table and the power to bequeath access to electrical outlets are actually mine.

I'm meeting Estrela here. She's one of the reasons I'm certain that things will turn out well in Brazil. If folks I meet in PoA* are only half as open, kind and welcoming as she is, then I will fare well. And considering that she concludes her research work here and returns to PoA just a few weeks after I arrive, I know I'm in luck (her sweet, well-behaved son may not agree as he's told her he'd prefer to remain another month in Austin).

Estrela and I met when we were both wearing short sleeves and could actually sit outside because the oppressive summer had subsided. I recall this when I see her walking into the room wearing layers of clothing. We greet each other with a hug and a cheek kiss. I'm still trying to figure out how many kisses is the appropriate number.

The barista delivers her hot chocolate with whipped cream on top and I sip, a little enviously, from my Earl Grey, thinking perhaps I should have ordered what she did.

We begin our conversation in English. Estrela informs me that she's spoken with a friend of hers in PoA, who agreed to let me stay with her while I find a place to live. How cool is that?! For a little bit, her telling me this that it's not sinking in. It just seems too nice. And then, my next thought is that I can't wait to let me granny know and assuage her fears a little (my dad told me that my granny told him that she was worried that I didn't have a place to live yet).

I often have an innate reaction to just want to do it all on my own. That's what I did when I spent an undergraduate semester in Madrid. No student halls or host families for me. Nope, I trekked through the city and stood in lines to look at apartments for rent. One landlord told me not to even bother looking at the place because he wouldn't rent to me. I wasn't Spanish and didn't have a job. Who cared about bank statements if I could just hightail it out of the country without a trace. It was about that time that I remember crying on the phone to my mother outside a sandwich shop. Several days, one Spanish bank account, one slow read of the lease (with dictionary) and a three-month deposit later, I had the keys to my own little attic apartment. Sure, you couldn't stand up straight in most areas of the room, but from the balcony you could see the opera house and watch the bats fly at dusk.

This time though I don't feel the need to go it alone. I feel comforted to have kind people there from the start to help me as I try to prepare for and navigate my journey. In this case these people now include Estrela's friend and her little dog. And I'm grateful.

Estrela and I continue talking and our primary language morphs slowly into Portuguese. I'm realizing that I do need to revisit that old grammar book from my undergraduate class, as I falter over various tenses. We're talking about poverty here and poverty there. She's telling me about the youth that live under the bridge of a major road in PoA. I have these images of what she's describing but they feel vague. "What do you do when you ask them for money?" I ask.

"I try to give them snacks, but sometimes when I look into their eyes, it depends what I see there. Sometimes I give money."

"I keep bottles of water in my car for the homeless guys I see on the street," I say, "Sometimes they are happy with that offering, sometimes not. Mainly it's just the gesture I guess. It's hard."

I realize most of the homeless guys on street corners here are old, grizzled dudes. Usually they're totally sweet to me and I am sympathetic. But, how would I react if it was a child? I've seen kids begging in India, but I wonder if it would hit me more to see it here where I don't expect it. Of course, almost 1 in 5 children lives in poverty in the US, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty but that takes us back to the point that what poverty looks like here is not what it looks like elsewhere.

Having made it through a year and a half of a social work education, I've become so much more sensitive to this kind of thing (just ask my boyfriend about my social work-flavored running commentary about any movie or TV show we happen to watch together). Something tells me that what I see in PoA is going to feel so much more intense than whatever I've experienced in the past. Especially because I'm likely to see all this in the kids I'll be working with. Up close.

The barrista comes by the table and and asks if she can take away the remnants of my Frito pie. I nod and say, "Thank you."

"I don't exactly know what to expect, but I imagine that I'm going to be shocked," I tell Estrela.

"Well then, at least you're prepared," she replies with a smile.

Our conversation turns to the frustrations of university parking and tickets. We get up to leave, putting our clothing layers back on and our empty mugs in the bucket by the condiments before we head out the door.

---

*I've noticed that people from Porto Alegre keep referring to the city as PoA in e-mails and it looks kind of cool to me, so I think I shall follow suite.