How Much? 15 or 50 or 500

Well, Hello out there to all my little nephews

 and some not so small nieces, too!  

You know who you are!  

Welcome, welcome to another edition 

of Aunt Michele's Stories for Friday, May 6, 2016.

When your Uncle Byron and Aunt Michele arrived to start working in Brazil in 1994, the first thing we had to do was start language training.  Now Uncle Byron had lived in Brazil as a teenager.  His parents came to Brazil to be missionaries when he was fifteen.  He had a real interest in learning Portuguese.  Probably so he could talk to pretty girls.  I'm just guessing there.  Anyway, his father paid for an older MK boy to tutor him.  So when we came to Brazil, Uncle Byron did his Portuguese lessons very quickly.  In fact, he took a test to see if he could skip the lessons all together.  By the time the teacher got around to checking his test he had already finished the work for half of the 30 required lessons.  His test was very good and he could have skipped the other fifteen.  But he chose to go ahead to finish them to learn more grammar.

Me, on the other hand - well, I had to study.  As a teenager I had taken two years of French in high school and two years of Spanish. I liked learning languages and didn't find it difficult but I had to start on Lesson #1 and work through ALL the lessons.  I finished all my work in about 10 months and "graduated" from language school.  But that didn't mean that I knew everything in Portuguese or that I could understand every conversation.

During that first year I made lots of mistakes.  One time someone invited us for lunch at their house.  I thought the woman had said MAYBE you could come to my house sometime for lunch when she had actually said COME TOMORROW.  She waited for several hours for us to show up and I don't think she ever really forgave us.

Another time I told someone to come over to our house SOMETIME and the next day they showed up when I was very not prepared for a lunch guest.  That person was very understanding and ate our leftovers with us and we had a great time. I'll never forget because later she made a decision for Christ and told people it was because I was a very sweet testimony to the Lord.

But my big story of the day has to do with numbers.  You boys know that I teach English here in Brazil, right?  One thing that I emphasize with my students of all ages is the importance of knowing how to count well in English.  I especially like to review the difference between 5, 15, 50, and 500!  Fifteen and Fifty can sound a lot alike to an untrained ear trying to learn a second language.  Brazilians tend to say them both the same like this - /five-tee/.  They forget that five changes to /fif/ and then swallow the /na/ on fifteen so both end up with the same sound.

The girl with her hand on my knee has studied with me on and off since she was five years old.  She can count well and read big numbers with ease but sometimes she still catches herself and stops to think before saying fifteen or fifty.

When William was a newborn baby and still in the hospital he needed to have a small surgery.  The pediatric surgeon came to the hospital to look at William and decided to perform the minor operation later that same day. When the doctor came by, I was alone with another missionary lady that had only been on the field for about one year just like me.  I asked several questions and thought I understood everything the doctor said including the price of the procedure - BR$50 and that we didn't have to pay until we took William to see him a week later at his clinic and office.

A week later we went to the office and were presented with a bill for BR$500.  When Uncle Byron finished his mouth-dropping, he explained to the doctor that it was a bit more than we were expecting and told him that I had quoted the doctor as saying it would cost BR$50.  We even called my own doctor who had recommended the surgeon to ask what we should do.  Our doctor tried to talk the price down but the surgeon was firm and said that it as not his fault if I had misunderstood.  Everyone agreed that the procedure only warranted about BR$50.  In the end of it all we paid the BR$500 but never ever recommended that man to anyone and never ever went back there. I believe to this day that he knew what he was doing - tricking me.  But I probably will not know for sure until I get to heaven.

What's the lesson learned from this story?  If it has to do with money in a foreign language - get it all in writing and make sure you have good glasses!

Take care and hope you are all having a wonderful week!