"I think I want to move there."
Yesterday, we had four guys from Brazil come by and look at our inventory. We've been talking to them for months about buying the engines from an airplane we purchased last June. They waited too long and someone else came up with just a little more money and, well, Cash Is King.
My bro worked with the ones that spoke the best English, and I was able to spend some time with the other two. Thankfully, their English was slightly better than my Portuguese. We talked about sunsets, international travel, food and culture. It was really a fun day once I figured out that they weren't any more interested in aircraft parts than I was.
One of them had just returned from Kenya, so I showed him a pic of me sitting in front of some little store in Zambia. Then I showed him the picture of my bro sitting in front of the same store two years before I was there. We talked about the orphanage in Zambia and why we're involved in it. We talked about all of the different animals he saw on safari (and I saw in my travels too).
That sounds really boring until you realize how much work it was considering the language barrier. It was actually quite entertaining. Never before has someone with whom we have a business relationship come to my work and played 'Charades'. It was really fun when I think I guess the right wild African animal.
I pointed out the nice sunset, and one of them pulled out his IPhone and showed me about 20 sunset pictures from his home town. It's really a neat thing to connect with someone who lives half way around the world and also appreciates a sunset.
I told them about our foreign exchange student from Brazil back in 1984ish. I told them that he didn't like it here. He would only eat peanut butter, and watched TV all the time. After just a few months, he decided to go back home.
They told me about their city, that has McDonald's and Wendy's too. Their City has many immigrants from all over the world, which is something they are very proud of. And he told me that many people from Brazil come to the U.S., but almost always want to go back home and never come back. My experience with the Brazilian student isn't unique, he said, because life is so different there.
Sure there are differences in the food and customs. But the main difference is that in Brazil, they just don't live life at the heart attack pace we live at in America. It is unheard of for a family not to have breakfast together, and about noon, the family gathers for their main meal of the day. They spend from Noon to 3:00 every day eating, resting and spending time together. He thinks the US moves too fast and misses the main things.
And he's absolutely right. And I very much enjoyed talking with these guys. And they bought some stuff and left. And I wish each of them the very best in life.
For a while whenever I get the after lunch sleepy's, I'm gonna think of those guys in Brazil (and a pretty big chunk of Central and South America as I understand it), that are doing just what I want to do, on purpose, with pride and enthusiasm.
Life is very good.