No Pennies

After hitting the two month mark on my time here in Rio, I have become so used to life in a different world that all the sudden the countless little differences have blended into my reality.  This thought hit me suddenly today when I was doing something I’ve done plenty of times since arriving: grocery shopping.

This is how it happened:

I walked into Zona Sul in Gavea, near PUC on way to school this morning to buy some bread for a snack.  Every grocery store here constantly pumps out fresh baked French bread, which means nine times out of ten your baguette is still very warm when you pluck it from the basket.  I waited for the tongs as an elderly man evaluated the softness and warmness of each piece with years of Brazilian expertise.  This turned out to be an almost two minute process, and when you’re standing, ravenous, in front of bread like that—that’s a long time.  When the torch…er, tongs, were passed to me, I simply got a piece, bagged it, weighted it, grabbed the sticker the scale spit out, and got in line.  This is the tragedy of a Brazilian breakfast.  The bread is warm when you get it, but after the painful slowness in which business here is conducted, by the time you check out your bread may be molding.  On this day mine wasn’t and when my turn came I was armed with correct change and the phrase “I don’t need a bag, thank you.”  Handing over the change was when it hit me.  The scale told me my bread was worth R$0.57.  I handed over to the cashier a fifty cent coin, and a five cent coin, smiled, and headed out the door.  That’s only R$0.55.  Now, depending on where in the world I was, what happened next could have been very different; here are two possible scenarios.

A.      (The U.S.)  The cashier grabs her microphone, alerts the store a thief is fleeing, and radios her manager to tell him that two pennies belonging to the corporation are walking out the door in my pocket.  This brings the 50 year old man to life; he sprints to the parking lot and with the help of a teenage bagger, pounds me into the ground and demands the remaining balance.

B.      (Brazil) Nothing.

Fortunately I was in Brazil.  In Brazil, there are no pennies.  None.  Not even a two cent piece or anything.  The smallest traded coin is five cents.  But that means Zona Sul just lost two cents!  If that happens to them three hundred times a day in each of their numerous stores—that’s quite a loss! 

But wait, what if my bread was R$0.58?  In that situation, due to the dark anti-imperialist radicalism of Latin America, I would have had no choice but to pay R$0.60, effectively losing two cents.  There they would go, off into the pockets of the corporate greed of capitalism.  Or, more realistically, to Zona Sul, who probably gave me the same two cents the day before. 

It seems pretty simple and easy.  So much so that perhaps I never took much of a noticing to it before, just like every Brazilian.  With the price of making an American penny at about $0.016, maybe the United States could learn something from Brazil?  Who actually likes pennies?  Why should we put up a fight for losing or getting a few?  Wal Mart couldn’t even be upset, all their prices end in $0.88!

My point is that it’s the little differences that make everything unique.  Countries on a large scale, people on a small scale.  Next time something is annoying, like a penny, maybe it would be worth it to just stop and consider it for a second.  Why am I doing this?  Does this way have to be the right way?  Could I look somewhere different for a new answer?  Just a little thought that popped into my head today with the help of some warm bread—something you can’t find at Safeway or Shop’n Save.