The Cup With Thw Wrong Name

by Ana Carolina Poleze Messias (Brazil)

Making a local connection Brazil

Whenever I traveled somewhere, I made sure to make my presence known in some way. So I would know that, in that part of the world, I would have a part of me too. This started when I traveled with my parents to Rio de Janeiro: I had a box of stickers and when we got out of the car, I stuck a smiley sticker on the sidewalk. Whoever passed that sidewalk with the sticker, would think, unconsciously, of me. I don't know what would be worth for me, but it is interesting to know that I would cause a certain curiosity in someone in a certain place in the world. And it wasn’t different when I arrived in Frankfurt. For the first time, I was alone and completely lost, like any tourist who doesn't know how to speak the local language. It was at the airport sidewalk that I left my first trash in Germany: a cup of espresso that I had bought when I arrived, with my name misspelled. "Annelise," I said. Haneliz, it was written. It looks silly, that glass was touched by me, I came from the other side of the world, and now it is in some trash in Frankfurt, with a name that is not mine. This connection is something, I think, inherent to any human being. We leave footprints on the moon. We stamp our fingerprint as soon as we are born. We steal sea shells when we go to the beach. We plant seedlings, kiss letters, buy souvenirs, take photos. That daydream on the way to the hostel made me think: Germany needs me more than a simple cup of coffee thrown in the trash. As the days of my brief stay in Frankfurt passed, I couldn't think of anything creative to leave a mark on that place. It was the first country on my trip through Europe. If in the next trips I have to think so much to leave a mark, I will have to buy a box of stickers and stick it on the sidewalks wherever I go. The penultimate day has come. It was the day that I would have to pack my suitcase to get to the airport early on the next day. I had visited everything, eaten all the famous desserts and even tried the local beers - I prefer the coffees. I survived, but I gave up about learning the local language. I had already given up thinking about leaving the city marked by me and all that blah-blah-blah. I left the hostel and decided to go to the place that I had liked the most: an ice cream parlor with a playground. In fact, the ice cream parlor was totally childish, with bright colors and toys everywhere. I was sitting on one of the ice cream parlor benches enjoying my strawberry ice cream, when, unintentionally, my eyes strayed to a child with a toy made of recyclable material. It was a girl in a blue-cinderella dress, about three or four years old, playing with a cup that had two drawn eyes and colored string hair. I realized that she was also playing with the scoop of ice cream she had just eaten. She loves to give things a new meaning, I deduced. Another child joined, a little boy, borrowed the glass and started to read, slowly, what was written. "Ha-ne-liz?" He said, in a completely weird pronunciation. I almost choked on ice cream when I realized. My body shivered and my belly burned. How was it possible? My cup, thrown in the trash, with the wrong name, in the hands of little German children who still can't speak properly. One thing inside me grew up and I wanted to hug those little children. Still unbelieved that, for days, I thought about how to feel connected to this place, without even knowing that I had been connected this whole time. Thank you, cup of espresso. Thank you, who wrote my (not) name in the cup. Thank you, child I barely know for recycling - the cup - and my desire to leave my mark in every corner of the world.