Valuables

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Brazil has one of the widest gaps between the rich and the poor. The rich have cars and private guards and cell phones and weekend houses on the beach. The poor have nothing. Today he might have a street corner where he can perform a hand stand, hoping to be tossed a coin. Today she might have an edge of a sidewalk where she can sleep for the night. Today he might convince some one to pay him for pulling weeds. Today she may be able to beg two kilos of food. Today he might have a pair of women's shoes, two sizes too small, with the heels broken off. Today she might even have a house that is hers if she can only stay in it for five years. But tomorrow maybe someone will burn her house down and she will have to start all over again. Tomorrow there may be some one with just a bit more power who can take away whatever the poor have today.

Understandably, with such a large gap between the haves and the havenots, there is a lot of violence. There are street corners where you keep your windows up so that you aren't threatened by a broken glass bottle. There are places where you don't go after a certain time of night. There are things you just don't carry with you.
And you plan to hand your purse over with no fuss should someone threaten you for it.
So I've gone through my purse, item by item, and asked myself if I would be okay if I gave it away, never to be seen again.

I start with the purse itself: A bargain picked up in the Amazing Chinese Department Store in Beijing. The brand name is "Hao Long" and it is "67% No Concept 43% Good Sense." I'd be sad to see it go, but maybe I could use my connections to have someone buy me another one.

Sunglasses: inconvenient to go without, but manageable.

Pink Lemonade chapstick: I would miss it, but I could get by with my Vanilla Cream chapstick that I leave next to my bed.

Hand Sanitizer: "Clean" is a cultural concept, I'll just adopt a different definition.

ATM card: Ha! Like anyone could get very far on the money that is left. Still, I mark down the number to call if it gets lost.

Bus money: It isn't a good idea to be without it, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. I wonder if people would toss me coins if I stood on a corner and sang songs from "The Wiggles".

Baggie with toilet paper: I stop here. I invision myself walking into a public restroom with no toilet paper. Suddenly the world is an evil place. I need a secure hiding place... maybe I could pin my hair in such a way that I could hide the TP there? Or maybe I should carry it out in the open so that any potential thief would know not to bother with it?

Being ready to leave everything behind is more difficult than I thought.

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