Today, I was ripped off. It wasn't anything major, it wasn't anything serious, and it wasn't anything that should warrant more than a few minutes of annoyance.
Rather than taking the bus, I normally catch a van home from PUC. Normally, I really enjoy the experience (I'll probably write about them one of these days), and for the most part I enjoyed today's ride too--until the end that is. After standing for the majority of the ride, I gave the attendant my fare and squeezed my way through to a seat in the back row, (politely) stepping over a few people to get there. After a few more stops, the attendant came over and said something to me. I didn't catch what he'd said and just assumed he asked where I wanted to get off. I told him, "Teixera" and figured that was that.
That was not that.
He kept talking to me in rapid Portuguese, and I literally had no idea what he was saying. I eventually guessed that he was trying to tell me that I needed to pay--even though I'd given him the money ten minutes earlier. I tried to tell him, "eu ja paguei, I already paid," but he didn't believe me. More rapid Portuguese followed, and eventually we were at my stop. Rather than get into an argument with him--it would've been pointless given the language barrier--I paid him (again).
Sure, I was pretty ticked that he charged me twice. But objectively it wasn't a huge deal. The fare is R$ 2,20--about a buck twenty five--so really, it wasn't some grand economic hardship. I'm also pretty sure the guy just honestly forgot; I might be wrong, but I didn't get the sense that he was trying to legitimately screw me over. And since nothing like this has happened before (in fact, the opposite has, the attendants have given me too much change on more than one occasion), I don't have any reason to think that it'll happen again.
So why did it bother me so much?
I think it has something to do with the fact that this experience opened my eyes to just how vulnerable I am here. "Vulnerable" might be the wrong word in this context, but it was really unnerving to see just how little control I had in that situation. Any kind of interaction like that takes a certain amount of energy and the ability to be confrontational; since I'm generally a very non-confrontational person (even when I'm totally in my comfort zone), being in a stressful situation like that was just too much.
---
So, I took a break from this entry for a couple days before posting it. I totally got over this whole incident in a matter of hours, but I think what I said is still true. It's a deeply disturbing feeling to find yourself completely incapable of communication with another human being. When language fails, what can do you do?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment