Monthly Archives: October 2010

Talk 2 Brazil – Weekly Radio Show

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Over the weekend, I came across Talk 2 Brazil, a weekly English-language radio show with expat Tom Reaoch who lives in Campinas, Brazil. The show features interviews with important people in the Brazilian business sector. Each interview is about 45 minutes and you can choose and pick which episodes you wish to listen to by going through their list (which includes show descriptions).

I’ve heard a few shows so far and they are pretty good for gaining an understanding of what kinds of things are happening in a country which is also pretty ‘happening’.

Talk 2 Brazil

Paraopeba Grocery Store – Short Documentary

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This is an interesting 7-minute documentary (in PT) on the history of the Paraopeba Grocery Store, in Itabirito, Minas Gerais, a savior of traditions and of the simplicity that is lost with time. Mr. José and his son are still involved with the same kind of simple yet rich grocery store of their ancestors, selling regional products, many times via trade, with a lot of dedication and respect for one another. For me, I’d trade all the supermarkets for shops like this.

An interesting side note. The botequim (bar) resulted from these kinds of stores, or armázens (such as the grocery store you see in the documentary above), and were traditionally owned and run by Portuguese expats in the time of the Portuguese Court in Rio. Customers would come to pick up what they needed and the owner would offer them a drink.

I’ll leave you with a nice song about the store.

How 4 Drinking Buddies Saved Brazil

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“This is a story about how an economist and his buddies tricked the people of Brazil into saving the country from rampant inflation. They had a crazy, unlikely plan, and it worked. Twenty years ago, Brazil’s inflation rate hit 80 percent per month. At that rate,  if eggs cost $1 one day, they’ll cost $2 a month later. If it keeps up for a year, they’ll cost $1,000.

In practice, this meant stores had to change their prices every day. The guy in the grocery store would walk the aisles putting new price stickers on the food. Shoppers would run ahead of him, so they could buy their food at the previous day’s price. The problem went back to the 1950s, when the government printed money to build a new capital in Brasilia.  By the 1980s, the inflation pattern was in place.

It went something like this:

1. New President comes in with a new plan.
2. President freezes prices and/or bank accounts.
3. President fails.
4. President gets voted out or impeached.
5. Repeat.

The plans succeeded at only one thing: Convincing every Brazilian the government was helpless to control inflation.” – Source (more here, including the story in audio)

Six Degrees of Teaching English

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The following if from the Blood Pearls blog and discusses Fiona’s experience becoming an English teacher in Brazil, where she went from no students to 14, quite quickly. Now all she needs to do is somehow trademark her method and sell it via infomercial for $19.95 (normally a $60 value).

“I think the last time I posted about teaching I had four students and I was pretty excited about it. Well now I have 14. If I were to stay here longer, I could make a pretty good business out of teaching private English classes. The exponential rate of growth is quite something. For a town which offers many courses in English at a variety of private schools, I didn’t realize that so many people would be coming to me for classes (hooray for being a native English speaker!). When I first arrived, there was already one connection through Gustavo’s mom’s neighbor’s daughter’s friend. Laughing yet? This is the nature of connections in Brazil. Through this remote connection, I have gained three students so far. One started right away in August, (the guinea pig), and two others are starting this week. ( The husband of my first student, and the husband of my boyfriend’s mom’s neighbor’s daughter.) The other students I gained like this…” – Source (more here)

Alto/a – Vocabulary

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Alto in Portuguese has a few meanings that you are sure to come across, the most basic of which are ‘tall (or high)’ and ‘loud (or loudly)’. On the other hand, when you use it in the feminine and proceed it with the verb ‘receber‘ (to receive), it means to be discharged or released, as in from a hospital. Technically, the phrase should be ‘receber alta hospitalar‘, where hospitalar means ‘that which pertains to a hospital’, but no one uses it in my experience. As for why ‘alta’ is used and not something more sensible like ‘descarga‘ (discharge), I haven’t the slightest.

Ex. Ele recebeu alta do hospital ontem.
Ex. He was released from the hospital yesterday.

The Costs of Becoming a Temporary Resident

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“Every evening after the federal police headquarters in Sao Paulo closes, immigrants and foreign professionals begin to line up along the street where they will remain, huddled under blankets, until the building reopens in the morning.

Since there is only one official to receive documents and only 100 people are attended to on a first-come-first-served basis each day, applicants have to wait in the cold all night to try to register as temporary residents, a process required by the Brazilian authorities.

Getting registered is so difficult that businesses often pay R$120 (or more than $70 U.S. dollars) an hour to have companies handle the process for their foreign employees. They pay even more — up to R$5,000 (almost $3,000) — to get professional assistance applying for a business or work visa, which can be complicated and time-consuming.” – Source (more here)

A Sad Day for Brazil

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I generally stay out of politics on this blog because frankly I don’t find it that interesting but I happened to read one of the top stories (in PT) on O Globo today and it saddened me greatly. It’s called “See which celebrities were elected on Sunday” and it runs the gamut of names that should never have been listed on a ballot. I mean, I get it, I do. By voting for unqualified people it sends a message (to whom?) that the Brazilian political system is a joke. But how much of that is true? How many everyday people actually weren’t in on the ‘joke’? And is it best to not search out that answer for fear of actually finding it out?

Sure, I don’t live in Brazil and I won’t be affected by the election results but for anyone to give away their power to a celebrity is just plain stupid and it nearly places us under an idiocracy. And I’m not just taking a pot-shot at Brazilians. Take a look at my own state where a foreign, iron-pumping, steroid-taking, talentless actor became governor. This trend (and it’s happening across the globe) is disturbing.