warm the cockles of your heart

with a story about... ice!

You know how on a hot summer's day there's nothing better than an iced drink? Well here in Paraguay, there are lots of hot days. One of the ways Paraguayans keep cool is by drinking an ice-cold "tea" made with a native herb. The drink is called terere (pronounced teyreyrey, sort of!) and is drunk by first filling a wooden beaker with the herb, pouring iced water from a thermos flask onto the herb and then drinking through a metal straw. It's extremely refreshing, it's usually shared with friends and it contains some kind of stimulant so keeps you awake during the drowsy heat.

It's important to have access to ice so that there's a ready supply of ice-cold water for the terere. Today on the news was a short item about a 10 year old girl who has been selling the ice to go in the thermos flasks. In Paraguay, the biggest sector of the economy is driven by informal trade, most of which happens on the street. So this girl has her cool-box full of cylinders of ice for sale, under a tree.

However, there's a huge difference between her and most street-sellers in that she doesn't actually stay there to take the money and hand out the ice. There's a little notice stuck on the tree, saying that each cylinder of ice is 500 Guaranies (about 6p) and there's a padlocked tin with a hole in the lid to put your money in. She started this as an experiment because she felt that people were more honest than they are often given credit for. So she decided to see how honest her fellow Paraguayans really are. How many people would take the ice without paying?

Well, it turns out that, much to the amazement of the reporter, everyone has been extremely honest in paying for what they take. In a world of cynicism and distrust, it's really wonderful to hear that there really are plenty of honest people out there.



© Fiona L Cooper 2008