While we were eating in Copacabana, a woman came in to play a few traditional tunes on her flutes, one of which was a double flute that sounds like you are playing two different instruments at once. Of course the hat then comes around for a donation.
That kind of thing is quite common here, as in some of Europe, but I find it a bit irritating. It's OK if the person is good, and you enjoy the music or songs. Then I am happy to give them a bit of change, especially when it gives me a taste of the local music and so I feel like I have gained something.
Sadly though, quite often they aren't any good at all, and you spend the time wishing they would go away and let you eat in peace - and then they get grumpy when you don't give them anything. And often it isn't just the one that turns up. You get a succession of them coming through, as well as the people who come in trying to sell you biros or torches etc.
In this case, the woman with the flutes was fairly good so she got a donation, but when the guitarrist came round later he wasn't great so got nothing. I used to feel bad about things like that, partly because I know that a couple of pesos is nothing much to me but can be a lot for them. But I don't feel bad anymore, especially since I noticed that the locals don't feel obliged to give anything themselves. Not that I have yet been brave enough to do what one of our group did an when the hat came round simply say I didn't like it. Maybe next time.
That kind of thing is quite common here, as in some of Europe, but I find it a bit irritating. It's OK if the person is good, and you enjoy the music or songs. Then I am happy to give them a bit of change, especially when it gives me a taste of the local music and so I feel like I have gained something.
Sadly though, quite often they aren't any good at all, and you spend the time wishing they would go away and let you eat in peace - and then they get grumpy when you don't give them anything. And often it isn't just the one that turns up. You get a succession of them coming through, as well as the people who come in trying to sell you biros or torches etc.
In this case, the woman with the flutes was fairly good so she got a donation, but when the guitarrist came round later he wasn't great so got nothing. I used to feel bad about things like that, partly because I know that a couple of pesos is nothing much to me but can be a lot for them. But I don't feel bad anymore, especially since I noticed that the locals don't feel obliged to give anything themselves. Not that I have yet been brave enough to do what one of our group did an when the hat came round simply say I didn't like it. Maybe next time.
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