Monday, June 11, 2007
One of the very first things I noticed about Paraguay is that it is a very service-oriented society. Even though upon arrival I only had two pieces of luggage, and two other people to help me besides, the guys at the airport insisted on carrying it for me. Of course you have to give them a tip after, but to refuse the service would be somewhat of a cultural blunder.
Up until earlier this week, however, I have opted against soliciting the help of a bag boy at the supermarket to help carry my groceries. Due to my obsession with effciency, probably even more than most other North Americans, I usually run to the supermarket, stuff my backpack with food, and if it isn’t too heavy, then I trot home too. Having a bag boy along would slow me down a lot. Usually I don’t have that much, because I go at least two or three times a week. This way I can buy my vegetables on Tuesdays when there is a 20% discount, and meat on Thursdays at a 10% discount. Everything from the bakery is 20% off on Wednesdays, but it’s not worth the pain because even if I bought a huge bag of bread, it’s so cheap and at most I would only save less than ten cents. Besides, I really like to have fresh bread, no more than 2 days old. And if it lasts longer than that, I buy fresh bread and make croutons out of the old! Maybe everyone thinks I am cheap, but I have to do something, since coupons don’t exist here and I don’t have the option of doing comparison shopping.
Returning to the former topic, another problem with the bag boys is the way some of them put the tomatoes on the bottom of the bag, underneath something heavy like a can of peas! Or when they stick ground beef and lettuce in the same bag. You’d think if someone bagged groceries for a living, they would think about stuff like that. So I don’t want to give a tip to someone who can’t even do their job competently. But I suppose the main reason is that I would have to walk 11 blocks in uncomfortable silence, or I would have to make small-talk with a stranger, not to mention some 15-year-old boy who would probably not understand me or make fun of my accent.
Last week I went to pick mandarin oranges at the neighbours’. I spent about 40 minutes there, playing with the kids, constructing a long stick with a hook on for getting the ones high up, and picking oranges between conversations, but when I was ready to go, the lady seemed to want me to stay longer. I gave the excuse that I was going to the supermarket, which was true, but on my way I felt convicted, knowing I could have passed another hour at her house and still fit in everything that I had to do that day. Jesus would have fit well into Paraguayan society. He always had time to sit and talk to a woman at a well, get up and preach an impromptu sermon, go to a synagogue leader’s house to heal his daughter. I read an article in Christianity Today, almost humorous, about how Jesus’ seemed to not really have any plan other than eventually get to Jerusalem and be killed. “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake” “You give them something to eat” “What do you want me to do for you?” His life lessons popped out of things he observed as he wandered around “Look at the flowers of the field” “Let the children come to me” “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.” I had a friend in college that used to stand in the longest line at the grocery store in order to start a conversation with the person waiting in front of him, and he wasn’t even a very outgoing person. If you’re trying to model your life after Christ, you’re better off not planning too much and taking provisions for the journey, and better to stay up all night praying than get some shut-eye even if you have an important meeting the next day.
I made a deal with my heavy conscience that if help was offered me, I would take him up on it. Oh, I forgot to say another reason why I was thinking of the bag boys is that I heard they don’t actually get a salary, just the money they make from tips, so I thought maybe I should start letting them help me so they could make money, plus I could find out if this was actually true. Here is a summary of my 11-block conversation with Rueben the bag boy from Stock Supermercado on Cacique Lambaré:
-15-old-boy, goes to school in the mornings and works 6 hours every day after school and on weekends too (that’s a high school student with a 42 hour workweek)
-thinks he has a great job, likes his coworkers, doesn’t have a salary but sometimes he gets free food at work
-the farthest he ever had to walk was 7 blocks with an old woman. I made him count how many blocks it was to my house. He said 11 but I have the suspicion he was just guessing
-I also have a hard time believing that he makes 10 to 12 dollars per shift, which means he would be making over $3600 per year, more than a full-time teacher at our school who works about 3 hours more per week, and over double the average income in Paraguay which according to a 2004 Encyclopedia is $1,570. (Although I am sure it is actually a lot lower than that, considering the 75% of the population who make less than minimum wage because it’s not enforced.)
-the best tippers are middle-aged men, but Rueben informed me that the ones who need help most often are the other señoritas “like yourself” (My theory from my waitressing days is that men tip more because they don’t have purses to put the change in and change in the pockets is annoying)
-usually him and his coworkers tell each other how much they make in tips. He tries to be in the lines of people who he knows give good tips and gives them better service. Sometimes he likes to keep a secret of a good tipper to himself so he can be the first to offer to carry their bags. I had no idea how much to give him, but I was scared to give him too much since he told me he was almost certainly going to tell the others the amount, and I didn’t want them to be too anxious to help me next time.
-sometimes people give him food as part of the tip. I hadn’t bought any snack foods, but I offered him mandarin oranges, which he refused.
-I gave him 10,000Gs ($2). Later Emi told me that half of that would have been a generous tip. I justified it by thinking at least now I know how many blocks it is to the super and to pay him for all the information he shared with me. Plus all I had was the 10 mil or 3 bills worth one mil each, which seemed too little for a boy supposedly making almost 10 mil an hour.
-Rueben has never had someone ask him so many questions in his life. I wanted him to be very happy and say “si gracias!” when I handed him the money and asked if it was suficiente. He responded with an ambivalent “I don’t know.” Maybe after all the talk about money he was expecting a new car or something. Maybe he was confused and just wanted to get back to work. As for me, I went in my house and giggled as I put away the groceries, folded the bags just how Emi likes them, and thought about writing this in my blog.
Up until earlier this week, however, I have opted against soliciting the help of a bag boy at the supermarket to help carry my groceries. Due to my obsession with effciency, probably even more than most other North Americans, I usually run to the supermarket, stuff my backpack with food, and if it isn’t too heavy, then I trot home too. Having a bag boy along would slow me down a lot. Usually I don’t have that much, because I go at least two or three times a week. This way I can buy my vegetables on Tuesdays when there is a 20% discount, and meat on Thursdays at a 10% discount. Everything from the bakery is 20% off on Wednesdays, but it’s not worth the pain because even if I bought a huge bag of bread, it’s so cheap and at most I would only save less than ten cents. Besides, I really like to have fresh bread, no more than 2 days old. And if it lasts longer than that, I buy fresh bread and make croutons out of the old! Maybe everyone thinks I am cheap, but I have to do something, since coupons don’t exist here and I don’t have the option of doing comparison shopping.
Returning to the former topic, another problem with the bag boys is the way some of them put the tomatoes on the bottom of the bag, underneath something heavy like a can of peas! Or when they stick ground beef and lettuce in the same bag. You’d think if someone bagged groceries for a living, they would think about stuff like that. So I don’t want to give a tip to someone who can’t even do their job competently. But I suppose the main reason is that I would have to walk 11 blocks in uncomfortable silence, or I would have to make small-talk with a stranger, not to mention some 15-year-old boy who would probably not understand me or make fun of my accent.
Last week I went to pick mandarin oranges at the neighbours’. I spent about 40 minutes there, playing with the kids, constructing a long stick with a hook on for getting the ones high up, and picking oranges between conversations, but when I was ready to go, the lady seemed to want me to stay longer. I gave the excuse that I was going to the supermarket, which was true, but on my way I felt convicted, knowing I could have passed another hour at her house and still fit in everything that I had to do that day. Jesus would have fit well into Paraguayan society. He always had time to sit and talk to a woman at a well, get up and preach an impromptu sermon, go to a synagogue leader’s house to heal his daughter. I read an article in Christianity Today, almost humorous, about how Jesus’ seemed to not really have any plan other than eventually get to Jerusalem and be killed. “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake” “You give them something to eat” “What do you want me to do for you?” His life lessons popped out of things he observed as he wandered around “Look at the flowers of the field” “Let the children come to me” “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.” I had a friend in college that used to stand in the longest line at the grocery store in order to start a conversation with the person waiting in front of him, and he wasn’t even a very outgoing person. If you’re trying to model your life after Christ, you’re better off not planning too much and taking provisions for the journey, and better to stay up all night praying than get some shut-eye even if you have an important meeting the next day.
I made a deal with my heavy conscience that if help was offered me, I would take him up on it. Oh, I forgot to say another reason why I was thinking of the bag boys is that I heard they don’t actually get a salary, just the money they make from tips, so I thought maybe I should start letting them help me so they could make money, plus I could find out if this was actually true. Here is a summary of my 11-block conversation with Rueben the bag boy from Stock Supermercado on Cacique Lambaré:
-15-old-boy, goes to school in the mornings and works 6 hours every day after school and on weekends too (that’s a high school student with a 42 hour workweek)
-thinks he has a great job, likes his coworkers, doesn’t have a salary but sometimes he gets free food at work
-the farthest he ever had to walk was 7 blocks with an old woman. I made him count how many blocks it was to my house. He said 11 but I have the suspicion he was just guessing
-I also have a hard time believing that he makes 10 to 12 dollars per shift, which means he would be making over $3600 per year, more than a full-time teacher at our school who works about 3 hours more per week, and over double the average income in Paraguay which according to a 2004 Encyclopedia is $1,570. (Although I am sure it is actually a lot lower than that, considering the 75% of the population who make less than minimum wage because it’s not enforced.)
-the best tippers are middle-aged men, but Rueben informed me that the ones who need help most often are the other señoritas “like yourself” (My theory from my waitressing days is that men tip more because they don’t have purses to put the change in and change in the pockets is annoying)
-usually him and his coworkers tell each other how much they make in tips. He tries to be in the lines of people who he knows give good tips and gives them better service. Sometimes he likes to keep a secret of a good tipper to himself so he can be the first to offer to carry their bags. I had no idea how much to give him, but I was scared to give him too much since he told me he was almost certainly going to tell the others the amount, and I didn’t want them to be too anxious to help me next time.
-sometimes people give him food as part of the tip. I hadn’t bought any snack foods, but I offered him mandarin oranges, which he refused.
-I gave him 10,000Gs ($2). Later Emi told me that half of that would have been a generous tip. I justified it by thinking at least now I know how many blocks it is to the super and to pay him for all the information he shared with me. Plus all I had was the 10 mil or 3 bills worth one mil each, which seemed too little for a boy supposedly making almost 10 mil an hour.
-Rueben has never had someone ask him so many questions in his life. I wanted him to be very happy and say “si gracias!” when I handed him the money and asked if it was suficiente. He responded with an ambivalent “I don’t know.” Maybe after all the talk about money he was expecting a new car or something. Maybe he was confused and just wanted to get back to work. As for me, I went in my house and giggled as I put away the groceries, folded the bags just how Emi likes them, and thought about writing this in my blog.
# posted by Ellen @ 10:55 AM 
