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.
Even though the "mexidão" make from leftovers, the family can have a dinner together is a happiness thing in the world.
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