Defrost The Crisis

                                                           

                                                         

                                           Defrost The Crisis  by Marcela Andrade

                     My dad always says that crisis can bring opportunities. In 1989 Brazil suffered the highest inflation ever experienced by the country. On March 16, 1990 The candidate Fernando Collor de Mello, assumed the presidency of Brazil. One day later, from Brasilia, the federal capital of Brazil, he announced a drastic economic plan for the country, called The Collor Plan. The plan froze the savings of the entire population, preventing any economic action. The feeling of fear and impotence was established. Furthermore, at that time my family was in the middle of  construction of our own dream house. With the new economic plan we saw the possibility of our dreams been demolished. It was then that I, along with my family, found out and built one of the  most valuable lessons ​​for my life. Crises can be very hard but also bring unexpected opportunities for our lives and change the way we face our problems.

        My parents had money for nothing. The high inflation was leaving them and all Brazilans panicked. To further worse the situation, a year and a half before the crisis, my family had started building our home and because that the nightmare was formed. As all the prices, the price of construction material had tripled and everything was super expensive. Like most Brazilians, my family was in panic. I was 6 years old, and vaguely realized that I had no more strawberry yogurt every day. The little money we had was been spent on cement and brick. My parents were worried about bills and debts and spent hours after dinner on the calculator. They were afraid of not having money to finish construction and worse, they were afraid of losing our home because of a lot debt.

        The high inflation plus spending money on the construction of my house made hard to have money left over, to go out for our as usual  Saturday’ dinners. Without loosing the humor, my mother invented one of my best memories of my childhood: the chef’s night. Every Saturday one of us  cooked for the family. My mother helped us of course, but the chef of the week was responsible for thinking about the menu and researching the ingredients. Because we could not spend money, my mother invented that each chef had to think about the menu but with the ingredients we had at home and this was the origin of the famous recipes of "mexidão" prepared by my family. We pulled all the leftovers from the fridge in a pan, plus some vegetables, egg and the menu was ready. The chef's nights were fun, and I think it helped my parents to forget a little bit about the debts and this also made my Family closer.

             Even at  the chef’s night bringing momentary relief to my parents, they were still concerned about their debt. They had spent more than they had planned and the house was not completed yet. We were in huge debt to the hardware store. Nevertheless, there was still a small amount in savings that my father had saved for after we moved, but the money from the savings did not cover that debts. Then unintentionally, the light began to appear at the end of the tunnel; a few weeks before the announcement of this The Collor plan froze the savings of brazilians, my father sensed something would change and pulled all the money he had in the bank. He was right, few days later, with the Collor plan on action no one could move any money and the stores owners were the first and hardest hit. Nobody could buy and no one could pay debts. It was then that my father saw an opportunity in crisis. With  the money my father had taken shortly before the crisis, he renegotiated our debts in half and still  have money leftovers. We were able to buy the rest of the material we were missing to finish our home.

        Even scared and worried about the crisis, my father and my mother did not let it to block themselves nor our family. From creating a new “night” with his kids, to making a bold move and getting all the money he had on the bank, they made the crisis an opportunity for change and learning, and these are the values lessons ​​that I bring with me today. No matter the how bad the crisis is, we must look at it in a constructive way. This is what I have done, whenever I find myself in the middle of a crisis: I remember my parents and I try to turn the crisis into a new opportunity.