Valentine's Day

I woke up today not even realizing it was Valentine's Day and then went on to have the most perfect Valentine's Day of my life. I fell completely in love tonight with an entire family, plus two new friends.

Amanda (another English teacher from the U.S.) and I met a couple of days ago and happen to be couch surfing a street away from each other so we decided to meet up to hang out tonight. Instead of going to another crazy bloco, we opted to just take a late-evening stroll along the Copacabana beach. We soon came across a decent-sized (but much calmer than the blocos) live-music party with people dancing everywhere. A group of four high school friends was beasting some samba so Amanda asked them to teach us how. We had our language barrier fun but one of the girls spoke Portuñol pretty well so she and I were able to communicate (and I finally put some portu into my Portuñol! Woo hoo!). Then we went closer in toward the musicians and found another random but fun group to hang out with for a bit--a professor, a guy who owns an adventure company in New Zealand and a pre-pro soccer player.

Once our legs got tired from trying to samba, we went to sit in the sand and chat. There was a guy in his early 20's sitting about five feet away from us, sitting against a tree, listening to the music and playing around a bit with his feet in the sand. A large family was sitting on a blanket about ten feet behind us and the most adorable little boy you've ever seen running back and forth between the family and the public, trying to sell gum. Every once in a while, he'd bust out some fantastic samba moves and Amanda and I were amazed watching him. She wanted to buy something from him but, by the time we stopped him to ask, he'd run out. He had the most adorable and most professional air about him, dealing with the two of us who couldn't even speak the language. He'd told us he was out but then gestured with both hands for us to wait and ran off to his family's blanket. He came running back with something else he could sell to us and, as Amanda bought it, we got to chat with him a little bit, asking him his name and age and whatever other simple questions we were able to somewhat articulate. After our transaction was done, he went back to his family's blanket.

Meanwhile, another cute little boy from the same family had gone to sit next to the young man playing with his feet in the sand. It was very obvious that these two people were from very different economic backgrounds and this was the type of situation where, in every other country I've ever been, the one with more money would sort of shoo away the poorer person. It happens in Korea, Mexico, Peru, the States...you name it. Not here though, apparently. From what I've seen so far, Brazilians are the kindest, most compassionate people I've met. Instead of being bothered (or disgusted as people often seem to look), this guy engaged the little boy in conversation and, soon enough, the two of them were playing, burying their feet in the sand together.

Amanda and I watched this adorableness happening and couldn't help but have the biggest smiles on our faces. We were pretty much staring so the two boys told us to join in and bury our feet as well and we all started talking from there. This 23-year-old guy spoke English, Italian and Spanish in addition to his native language and, after a bit, he came over to sit with us, consequently bringing along the little boys as well.

There were a seven year old, a nine year old and a ten year old and they were just the most precious little souls. Vivian (something like that, anyway), the mom of the 9 year old who had been selling gum and the aunt of the other two, came over to chat as well.

We introduced ourselves and talked a bit, but the conversation quickly turned into Portuguese lessons for us (another fantastic idea by Amanda) since we couldn't say a whole lot and, eventually, an exchange where I taught them English words as well. The lesson was simple and organic; we'd look around and point to something and teach each other how to say it. These kids were hilarious and adorable and my face started to hurt from smiling so much. All of them--the ten year old (Fernando) in particular--had such enthusiasm toward leaning these words. He asked me everything he could think of, repeated each thing multiple times with his face six inches away from mine to make sure he was saying it right, and then proceeded to turn around and teach it to his aunt or another family member.

While I was Portuñoling, teaching English and learning Portuguese with the family, Amanda and our new buddy were talking and he filled her in on the family's most-likely situation. They were from a favela (of course, because the kids were having to sell things to help the family survive) and probably intending to sleep on the beach that night. The kids would likely never have access to any sort of decent education (much like the crappy schools in our poorest areas in the US) or any chance to get out of the favela life. Having to work at ages 7, 9 & 10 to help keep their family alive, they'll never have time to study and, being from a favela, the schools around don't provide good education anyway.

My heart is exploding with love and in severe pain from thinking of the tough situations that these kids (and this entire hard-working family) will face, through absolutely no fault of their own. 

It eventually started to drizzle and seemed like it was going to rain so we all got up to leave. The family-there were about 12 or so people-got up and picked up all their stuff...their blanket and the cans and bottles they'd collected. Vivian, who'd told us she was 25 years old, held her 9-year-old's hand and carried her 1-year-old in the other arm. She asked how old I was and I told her 26. She looked at me with tired eyes and asked if I had kids, seemingly expecting to have some sort of understanding between the two of us. I looked her in the eyes with sympathy, wanting to understand her situation or to be able to do or say something that could help but all I could do was shake my head and say 'no'. Because we'd been born into two very different situations, I was fortunate enough to understand nothing of her difficult life.

This family's situation is not fair...and while (I know, I know...) "life's not fair," it's sometimes hard not to wish it was. 

When you come across a situation like this, you want to do something about it, right? But while I stood there speechless, having no idea what to do or how to help (this family or any of the families in similar situations all over the world), I watched Amanda, a beautiful person inside and out, take her ring off and give it to the Vivian. She asked if she would accept it because the ring had four little kids holding hands and Amanda named each one of them after the four kids we'd met that night. Everything was making me want to cry all at once-the pain of this family, the beauty of Amanda's gesture, the gratitude I felt for having spent such a wonderful night with this family and learning so much from them.

If nothing else, I hope these kids walked away from tonight with a desire to learn; I hope they feel proud of themselves for doing something new tonight and putting so much effort into it; I hope their mom, Vivian, sees the value of education (and especially language education) and continues to encourage her kids to work hard and learn, just like she did this evening.

I hope that something miraculous happens to this family and every family in their same situation so that one day they can somehow be given more of a fair chance to not only survive, but to really live in this world. I hope I never forget the love we shared tonight or how it felt to see things a little more from their perspective and I hope I can somehow find a way--any way at all--to help.