there are truly good people in this world...

Igreja do Bomfim (Church of the Good Ending)

Living in a place like Brazil where 9/10th of the guys whistle or hollar at you, or where rich people look down at you because your not rich and poor people hate you because you have money, it can be easy to loose faith in the pure goodness of a person. It is espically difficult for people to treat you as an equal as soon as they find out you are American- there are so many folks here that want to use you, because of the power of my citizenship (yes, I have been "proposed" to, a fake marriage so they can get the american citizenship, and money in exchange). That I felt it necessary to talk about two people. The first ones name is Thiago. That is all I know.

When my friend Jess was here in salvador visiting, we went to the most famous church here, the Church of Bomfim (literally, bomfim= good ending). After a 2 hour long bus ride (that took all of 45 min on the way back, gotta love Salvador traffic) as we were walking to the church, I stubbed my toe. Kinda bad. When I got a better change to look at it, all of the skin was gone. For those of you who know my, I brushed it off, and continued walking, blood gushing and in pain. I figured the sooner we saw the church the sooner I got home, and the quicker i could take care of my toe. Well as it turns out, I am NOT super-woman, and finally caved in to ask a man working at the church where the bathroom was. He told me there was not one (Yay hundreds of year old churchs!) but when I showed him my toe, he told me to wait.

 He ran and got me some water and alchool, and washed my foot off. He then told me and Jess that his shift was over and that if we could wait, he would go to the nearest drugstore to buy band-aids, medicine, ect. He refused to take our money, sawing we could pay him later. (note:this is very uncommon in brazil. generally if people go get you stuff, they want the money upfront. and you are always running the risk of them taking off with said money)
when he arrived, he told us it would be better if we went to his house, where he could wash off my foot and talk better care of it. I balked at that idea. I am no dum-dum. At this point he knew we were americans, AND more importantly, you dont go into strangers homes. He realized how this sounded, and explained as a functionary of the church, he lived in church property. He said he really only wanted to help, and could understand why we were hestitate to accept his help. He said we would only go in the first room, and he would leave both doors open.

When we walked in, he set up a mini doctors office, including gloves and sterile cloth. As he was cleaning my wound, he told us how he liked the outdoors, and therefore had taken several classes in first aid, triage, ect. We talked a little about how it was sad that Jess and I had to be so cautious about him helping us. After he bandaged me up, and told me what else I should buy and do to take care of my toe, he told us to come back whenever and visit him and his wife.

On top of that, the next day, a friend of mine on facebook commented on how beautiful I looked in a photo (note, beautiful not sexy). When I later was talking with him, I had to finally say that he wasn't gonna get anything, blah blah blah. And he said, no, he only wanted to be friends with me. He just thinks that people do not appericate beauty in life enough, and that when he think someone looks nice, he tells then.

So these two events have really made me feel better as a person in genearal, and have renewed my faith in mankind. so to speak. I know this was a very long post, but i felt it important to share. I also feel that one of the best ways to thank people like these two is to not thank them, but got out of your way to help another. It is like that movie, Pay it Forward, which is really the first time this idea came into my head.

So, as we get into the Christmas season, do me a favor. Pass it on. Pay it forward. Give a random act of kindness.