Giovanna Cardoso Amui

ESL 221-4

Professor Austin Kaufmann

Personal Essay - First Draft

September 16, 2014

Personal Faith

My boyfriend, João Victor, reminded me a couple of weeks ago about one of his “life lesson” episodes.  He was telling me about the feeling, about how good he felt after what happened, And how he had no regrets, even having gone through some unexpected situations because of it. 

He was going back to the city he live from his parents’s city, Goiânia, for his best friend’s birthday. He planned a whole surprise party. It was the day of the party, so he had decided to return on the morning of the party so as not to cause suspicion. He was in the bus station waiting for his bus to arrive and the boarding, the bus takes nine hours to complete the journey. He was excited about the surprise. He would arrive at six pm. Then we would have time to prepare everything for the party, which was supposed to start at nine.

About 20 minutes before his bus arrived, while he was waiting, an old man with an sad face asking for help passed close to him and stopped in front of a man in a suit, later João learned that the old man has been hired to work in a city far from his home, and he was going back home because the company had gone bankrupt and he does not received his money, so he had no job and little money anymore. The old man had a little bit of money that he was saving, but wasn't enough to go all the way home. He was in the middle of the path, in Goiânia. He had never been there, had no money, was hungry, and had already faced 20 hours of bus travel without eating anything. 

The man in the suit started yelling to the old man saying:

“Stop annoying people with all this lies. I work hard to earn my money, and I am not going to give you. I do not even know you. Go find you a real job.”

 My boyfriend saw the whole situation, and felt really uncomfortable. In Brazil it is common to see beggars asking for money and inventing stories to convince people to help them but that old man did not sound like a beggar, just an honest and unlucky old man.

Even being a little suspicious in the beginning my boyfriend decided to help the old man. He asked the old man’s documents and went with him to buy the ticket for his city. When this was done my boyfriend still had  time to get on his bus, so he decided to go with the old man to the restaurant and pay for his dinner, and in the end it was not a lie, the poor old man was starving and worried about when he would eat again. They both talked a lot, and the old man told my boyfriend that he was from a small city, that he had never been in such a big city, that he was really afraid until Joao had helped him. 

After eating, my boyfriend took the old man to his bus and said goodbye to him. The old man thanked Joao a lot, and said that he would never forget that. Then Joao went back to the place where his bus would arrive, and he just saw the bus in the distance, already out of the bus station, without him. 

He went to the ticked station asking about the next bus, and discovered that the next bus would only be there in 12 hours. He called me to tell the story and asking to help him with the party. In the end he could not be in his best friend’s party, but in general he was not feeling bad, actually he was feeling happy.

That was what he was talking about the feeling, the good “thing” inside of him, the relief, the feeling of gratitude. This kind of situation also makes me think about faith. 

We lost our faith in people. There are so many bad people in the world, and because of the fear we sometimes give up on everybody, even the good people.

        I know it is hard to measure when people are being honest or not but sometimes by not giving  money to someone we are helping them, like for the people addicted to drugs. There are a lot of different types of help but they all must have only one reason to happen: our own desire to help. We should not wait for any reward, should do just because helping people is right and good. I do not know exactly what define “a good person” but I am sure that helping people will not go against it, quite the opposite.