Keep the change

Shoprite - Belas Shopping Center

When it comes to grocery shopping, you rely on experience.  At the checkout, you casually watch the cashier ring up your items.  Thoughts may go through your head like, "Wow, got a good buy on that" or "Man, glad my parents don't know how much I paid for that."  And if you really feel awake, you might play senior controller and do a little audit on the receipt and raise a question to make sure you got credit for the returnables.  In Angola, we are learning, when you pay at check out, there is no return change.  At first, we asked questions, in a calm manner speaking our best queens english.  When we realize the cashier does not speak english, we hold up the receipt and point to it and raise our voices and simplify our communcation to "I WANT MY MONEY!!!" thinking this will solve the problem.  Finally, after stares from the customers behind us, the cashier serenely looks at us, and throws in a box of chicklets and a mars bar.  And a quick and final glance follows speaking to our confused faces that says, "This is the way we get things done around here."  For us, this is a small but never the less change in our lives, and we keep it and move on.