Souvenirs

The next day was the only day I ever made a point of going souvenir shopping. Xiao came with me. There was urine on the sidewalk when we walked to the lower city’s market and she was very put off by it. I told her I saw people peeing on the streets in Shanghai and she said, “But not like this!” It was just a little kid, but anyway. This was the time I talked to her about how hard it is for a gay person to say that they’re gay to you, and asked her if she thought being gay was a choice. All on the way to the market.

She walked upstairs at the market. A guy there spoke English because he was a tour guide. That was helpful. She got some charms for people back home – specifically her mom, whom she is very close to – but worried that perhaps she had overpaid. I told her not to worry about it. No price that she paid was seriously exorbitant as long as what we bought was the stone they said it was. This is where I got stuff for Mom and Dad and Jess & Sam. Gem stones are very cheap in Brazil. The woman at the store where I got most of my stuff spoke English and was very nice. She gave me her card to give to other people. The woman at security was impressed by the look and price of some of the stuff I brought back, so I gave her a card.

I learned that she was from Nepal sometime in the last stretch. They speak Malayalam. I started to say Namaste to her. MSWord capitalizes that word by default for some reason.

I kind of wish that I remember what I did with my last night in Brazil, but I’m pretty sure it was spent on the boat doing something. I can’t quite remember what. Maybe someday it will come back to me. Maybe I played guitar, I forget.

I remember the first night, Isaac and Christina and I sat on the steps and talked for a long time. Bernie walked by without a shirt on a played my guitar for a bit. Alex fell down the stairs and we all had a good laugh at that. The Nepali security guard asked us to be quiet so that no one complained about us.