In Rio, the Good Things Are Taken Away From You, Coconut by Coconut
“You have bought it, but you cannot eat it,” the kiosk guy told me.
The Coconut Institution
Drinking coconut water is very traditional at the Rio beaches, as it is in many beaches around the World.
This is how I would describe the coconut drinking experience in Rio, which usually happens in two phases.
Phase I
- You order a coconut.
- The kiosk guy masterfully uses his machete to open a hole on the top of the coconut.
- He hands it over to you, with a couple straws.
- You drink the sweet and cold beverage.
Phase II
- You take your empty coconut to the kiosk.
- The kiosk guy rips the coconut in half using the machete.
- He also carves a couple spoons out of the coconut shell.
- You use the carved spoons to eat the coconut’s white, delicious meat.
It has been like this for many years.
What Is Happening Now?
The other day I was in Ipanema. My son wanted to drink and eat a coconut.
“It is 6 reais,” the guy told me at the kiosk.
First hit! Just the other day it was 4. I guess inflation is everywhere. I’ll tell you more on coconut prices in a moment.
Then, the guy picks a hammer and a nail. He opens a hole on the coconut’s side. He sticks a straw in it and hands it over.
The hole is as wide as the straw and, in a moment, I notice how hard it is to reach all the “corners” of the coconut. It has an irregular shape after all. The straw enters vertically in a tight hole and cannot really maneuver inside.
Second hit! What kind of stupidity is this? Prices are rising, but service is getting worse.
“Let me try,” my wife told me.
She kindly asks the guy to widen the opening a little bit, because there still is water inside, but we cannot drink it.
He returns the coconut. The opening widened…by 1 millimeter, it seems.
Third hit!
We drink the water, battling through the difficulties.
I take the coconut to the kiosk.
“Can you please open it up so we can eat the meat?”
“We don’t do that anymore. We are forbidden because it was resulting in too much garbage on the sand.”
Asking around, it seems this is becoming a general procedure among all kiosks.
Fourth hit! I am being blocked from eating what I bought.
Fifth hit! The reason is impoliteness of other people.
Sixth hit! The solution is not to tackle the impoliteness, but to remove a right from everyone else.
Seventh hit! The guy was very rude throughout the whole process.
In Rio, being treated politely and respectfully by people providing any service is asking too much.
I guess my coconut days are over.
Epilogue: Coconut Prices
A couple years ago, I spent some days in a coffee farm.
One day, the man in charge asked me if I wanted some coconut water. I accepted and off we went to an area where he had hundreds of coconut trees.
A lot of coconuts were rotting on the ground. He picked one especially for me, from the thousands that were still hanging on the trees.
“Try this one. It should be perfect.”
It was.
“Why don’t you sell these? You just drink them whenever you want and leave the rest to rot?”
“Well, yes. See, someone comes here with a truck and asks to buy my coconuts, they offer me R$ 50.00 for one thousand units.”
“That’s five cents per coconut,” I concluded.
“Yeah. Not worth selling. Some desperate people do sell at that price and that’s the market.”
In summary, back then, the truck guys took the coconuts to Rio after travelling around 800 kilometers and sold them to the kiosk guys who, in turn, sold them for R$ 4.00 a unit. That was the beach kiosk price at the time.
