Do you speak English?

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I was at the Belo Horizonte bus station buying some tickets for my family to go to the beach this January. Suddenly, while I paid the agent, a young woman with African characteristics (black and short hair) stood beside me and started to look at me as if she wanted something. I wave to her and continued paying the man, however, after one or two minutes the woman continued looking at me. When I was going to ask her what he desired she started talking to me in English. She was a handcrafter from Ghana, Africa and she was in Brazil with a friend selling her products. She told me that she had lost the bus to Brasília and she would have to buy tickets for the other bus, but it was impossible because she didn't speak Portuguese. She had memorized some numbers in Portuguese just to use our money (reais) and she rather nervous trying to pronunciate the complicated name of the bus company "Itapemirim". How I know a little of English I started to help her, and after few minutes she could buy the tickets and travel to Brasília. My question is that here in Brazil the government and the education bodies doesn't give real importante to talk English. And people come from other countries where, though it don't be the mother tongue, English teaching is taken seriously. What do you think about nations that doesn't give importance to learn English? Marcelo