Rolando: the friend without manners.

We made a cake for Rolando’s birthday. I met up with him in the usual spot and walked to our house. On the way up he stopped at a toy store and looked in the window and talked about the toys. I felt that even though I don’t want to just keep giving him money, I would be a bad friend if I didn’t buy him a birthday present. And above all I’m trying to be a good friend. I said, I would like to buy something for you for your birthday and asked him what type of things he might want. Eventually we went in and looked at prices but we decided to come back later.
We went to my house and I fixed up some cake and ice cream and the candles and sang a quick song to him. The traditions here set up a little bit of extra confusion. He waited to blow the candles out. He kept looking towards the doors of Randy and Jon’s rooms as if waiting for them to come out. Finally when I asked him what he was waiting for, it made more sense. He was thinking of what to wish for. Eventually David, Jon, Randy, Kavil, Ali, and Hannah had all stopped in and had a little cake together or a steak and egg sandwich.
On our walk back down to the Prado Rolando asked me if instead of using the money to buy a toy, it could go towards helping him buy the pants and shirt he said he needed for school. I said that was a great idea. But then he started doing the math and saying if the toy was going to cost 48 B’s (the most expensive toy we looked at) and then he could get better pants for 35 B’s and add a shirt for a little more… I got disappointed and told him, with a little bit of the disappointment coming through in my voice, I’m not a bank.
That very morning, at our morning devotional/gringo meeting we had talked about giving and what the Bible says about giving. The Bible seems to say that you should give them more than they ask for and keep on giving (if he asks for your coat, give him your tunic too, if he asks you to carry it a mile, offer to carry it a second). It seems like the Bible infers that the poorer you are financially, the richer you are spiritually. That makes sense, to me: when you don’t have the money to be your safety net, God has to become your safety net.
I told Rolando how I felt used and that what I wanted to give him was a gift, not a bank account for him to tap. After I got that out on the table, things were better. You know when you are holding something against a friend, or family your whole time together suffers? It’s like there is a wall between you, and it is very difficult to play over that wall. Sometimes it seems to help to get it out on the table. After I did, it was finally fun to hang out with him again. We were laughing and joking. He actually said Thank You for these things you’re giving me. And that was long-awaited. It felt really good to hear it. And I guess in some way it felt more right than if he had said it like polite Americans say it right away. The fact that he said a while afterwards meant that he was still thinking about it and probably wasn’t saying it just because it was the polite thing to do.
I think it’s interesting, interacting with Rolando. He didn’t grow up with parents to teach him the things most kids learn, like manners. He was given to an adoption house shortly after he was born. I think it’s interesting because I get to see maybe what a person would be like without the front of manners hiding who he really is. Some might say that being educated is part of who you are, and I think that’s true, but with Rolando, I think I can see his root instincts bared in what he does. When sometimes that’s uncomfortable for me to be with him, other times it seems more valuable because I get to see the real him.

When we finally got to go buy him pants so he could go to school, I was surprised that he went to get sweat pants and a Bolivar Jersey. I asked him if that was really what he needed to go to school, and why. He said yes, and that it was so that if he fell he could clean them better. I later asked Pedro (the Bolivian YFC boss down here) if that made any sense. He said, no. He said, I should say they have to ask him if they want us to buy them something.
The next day I met up with him and I asked how he was. He said his not so good- that his stomach was very empty. Again that barrier grew between us and I felt like a bank again. I had taken him out to lunch before and I can see how it would seem like it was becoming a habit. I told him I was full but if we wanted to get something cheap from one of the stands I would pay for half. We went over and got some cookies.
From the time he said, I’m hungry, until we parted, there seemed to be that wall that was very hard to play over between us. In fact it was he that said, he had to go do something instead of spend the rest of our usual time with me. I have to say I was relieved but a little bit sad that our friendship was suffering. I think next time I need bring something else to focus on. Like have him teach me how to make the bracelets that he says he can teach me.
He did do me a couple favors, which I see as his way of giving things to me. I had a 200 B bill (which is a unusual bill because it is worth so much). I said I needed to get change. He said, there on the corner is a friend of his that will change the bills for 1 B if I ask him, but for free if Rolando asked him. So I gave him the 200 B bill, a little bit of a test with the roughly 25 dollars walking away from me in the hands of someone who I felt thought of me as a bank.
The other favor he did for me was that he tried to save a shoe shiner box for me. I told him I wanted to buy a shoe shining box so I could start shoe shining. He had seen one for sale at a good price and tried to ask them to save it for me, but they didn’t. Rolando is a good guy for favors like that.
Rolando had told me that he doesn’t like to wear a mask when he is shoe shining, but today, and lately he had been wearing one. I asked him why. He pointed to the big scar on his face and I think he said, “I don’t want to scare people away.” And also he said that he didn’t want certain people to know he was a shoe shiner because then they wouldn’t talk to him. I have a hunch that also he has problems with certain kids because they beat him up.