The Brazilian Culture 2
From new cultural experience to new activities, last weeks were really moving. And now the end is approaching I feel more aware of the close bounds with certain people around me. For now lets not think about the coming goodbyes, because those don't need to be the last ones. Life is full of opportunities, for example driving with a motorcycle over your beloved coffee. 😇
At the coffee farm I needed to work hard, but I didn't mind. It was the first time (like many things here in Brazil) that I drove a motorcycle and that on coffee beans. No worries, it was save, I couldn't fall with a 3-wheeled motorcycle... Owh, you are worried about the coffee beans where I drove over, not about me... Well again, no worries. These coffee beans aren't used for consuming as a beverage but as seeds for new coffee plants. But... most of the coffee farms that produce coffee beans for beverage and use drying terraces use this motorcycle technique to dry and mix there beans.
During last weeks I have noticed again some interesting cultural differences. I received a lot of positive comments on the post about culture and I thought it would be interesting to share my new cultural views.
Brazil is for me a very warm country, I was happy winter was coming to Brazil. According to klimaatinfo.nl the temperature should be here around a nice 25°C. But climate here isn't right this year, first we had a few weeks with a lot of clouds and some rain while it should be dry season with clear blue skies. Temperature didn't reached the 20°C some times. And some day like these last few days, there is a clear blue sky and it is very hot... 29°C!!! In the mornings it is luckily a bit colder, around 13-15°C. And you even see sometimes people with winter hats on. I usually enjoy the cold as long as it is, because soon when the sun rises above the trees it will be hot again. Funny thing about this weather talk, apparently Brazil plans his construction work for the dry seasons. This way they don't have delay because of the weather. Those few days of "bad" weather delayed some of the road construction work.
I usually go out early to have my breakfast at Restaurante de Universidade (RU). Every morning (even in the weekends) they have porridge with bread. It's simple, fast and a good start of the day. And this all for just €0,26, amazing! But the waiting queue is often very long.
During lunch I go too to the RU or MU, at the RU you always get your food on a metal dining plate. This gave me the first time a really prison like feeling, but you get used to it. At MU you can serve yourself, both restaurants have long waiting lines. But I think you only wait for 10 to 15 minutes. Lunch always consists of rice and beans, just like the same for dinner at the restaurant. The only variation every meal is the change in salad and meat or vegetarian food. So it is really easy and cheap (€0,51 for lunch or dinner) to eat at the restaurants, but the downside to it is you get really bored soon after every day eating rice and beans twice a day...
After lunch and evening meal you can drink a cup of coffee (espresso) with of course a lot of sugar in it. Most of the times I drink one cup after lunch and just watch all the students. And while doing so, I see a concerning happening... A lot of food goes to waste, while people fill their own plates they don't eat all of it. And I must admit, it is difficult with the metal plates divided into sections to see what amount of food you already have. At least this is how I experience the metal plates. But I just want to briefly address some numbers. In Latin America alone, about 200-225 kilograms of food per capita goes to waste or is lost annually. Food that is going to waste in Latin America is enough to feed 300 million people. On a world scale about 1/3 of all the food that is produced goes to waste or is lost in the proces. This amount can feed about 3 billion people. This is astonishing, while knowing that about 805 million people don't have enough to eat. And this while our population keeps growing, with an estimation of 9 billion people in 2050. Scientist are researching how to improve food production efficiency and crop yield while we already produce almost enough food for 9 billion people. Fixing this worldwide problem is a major challenge for current and coming generations.
It's funny, but I also noticed - like in one of the post comments mentioned - that there are a lot of jobs which doen't require you to work hard. For example, in the restaurants of the UFV people who are working there have really small jobs. One serves the porridge, one serve the cutlery, one the butter, one the coffee, one the bread, etc. Other jobs that don't involve hard labor are for instance the people who are guarding the entrance of my apartment building. It is 23 hours a day (no not 24) manned with all they need to do is open and close the door with a button. But they are very nice people. At the entrance of the UFV which is just a road is always a guy overseeing the passers-bys. Guarding profession you also find in the supermarkets. Again an other job is driving around in a vehicle with promotional audio. Some more poorer people walk around the streets to collect aluminium or carton from trash. And one time I was working at my office during my internship and a guy knocked on the door. He offered me some types of bread, at first I thought that guy was from the department and he had something to celebrate. But then I discovered the bread wasn't free 😅. Probably he just bought the bread at the local supermarket and tries to sell it for a higher price, because the bread they also have in the supermarkets. And it really weird such a guy tries to sell things inside a university building. In previous posts I mentioned the cultural difference in greetings and goodbyes. It is really normal to hug people when you have met them, this is even when you meet someone new and when you say goodbye you can give him/her a hug. The hug is the handshake we have in the Netherlands. But a new social thing I noticed is how easy it is to meet new people. And by meet I mean in friendship terms. Maybe it is because I'm a foreigner, or maybe it is because the Brazilian people are just very nice, generous and social people. By easy I mean, just sitting at a bench outside and people will start talking with you, or not... But this way I met 2 people, another just during dinner at RU. The people are here much more open then I know from the Netherlands. And of course, in the Netherlands random people will/can also start a conversation. But this mostly doesn't end in a long term contact which you will see or speak again.
On a Saturday morning I went shopping with Ana (needed a critical advice). The way to shop here is also different, in the Netherlands we have different types of T-shirts, jeans, jackets, etc. and for every type you can choose sizes. Here, they have also different types of every clothing but no choose in sizes. You just look what there is to choose for your size. That's why the clothing was sorted by size and not by type, creating stacks of folded clothes with all different colors. It wasn't really practical either, if you wanted a shirt low in the stack of shirts the whole stack needed to be moved... But despite all this, the shopping went really fast. I planned to just buy 2 T-shirts, but with Ana that wasn't possible so I have learned. Ending up with 4 T-shirts and 2 shirts, but all of them are really nice!
That same day I met a new friend while sitting on a bench. We played some Uno, with her friend and a new guy. After this and some other things, I bought my bustickets for traveling from and to Rio de Janeiro. Now the day was almost ended, I decided to go to a party with latin and African music.
The weekend after I went to another party called 'Festa Junina'. Everybody is meant to dress like farm-like with checkered shirts and boots. During this party there was a shot of cachaça with mint juice that was ignited and I tried it. It was good. Also at the party, food, different types of soup and what I tried was canjica doce. It is comparable with rice milk but made of corn. Also very nice, that same day I had forró class for the first and last time since the motorcycle accident. And I managed to learn in one lesson all what has been teached, this I could put into practice at the Festa Junina. Because they played some forró songs, usually more but somehow there was also a lot of reggaeton. 😉 Which is good and nice music too, it makes you loosen your hips. 💃 And finally, I danced a quadrille which felt like a German-like dance.
The day after, I needed to wake up early for the coffee which needs my attention even in the weekends... After the coffee, I went together with Pollyanna (a friend of Ana) to the market. There we ate some pastel with cheese and the sugarcane juice. I lunched with her and the housemates, where I cooked some Dutch meal. And in the meantime I'm trying to plan/organize my stuff for traveling. In my next blog you will read all about this coming journey through Rio de Janeiro, Pantanal, Paraty and Ilha Grande. So keep an eye out!
What I think is an important part of the Brazilian culture is the Brazilian politics. I have had many conversations with different Brazilians about the politics in Brazil but also about the immigration problem we have in Europe. Those conversations always give me new points of view to the problems that are happening nowadays in the world. I always wanted to share some of the political information I get from the conversations, but for me who doesn't understand the situation completely it is difficult to write about it. Because of this I'm really excited to announce a guest writer, a Brazilian friend, who will write about his view and the current state of politic events in Brazil. I hope you will enjoy reading it and find it as interesting as I did.
Lula is a former president of Brazil, he was the leader of a party called "The Workers Party". Lula's party has been opposing the government ever since the party was created, this lasted until Lula was elected.He was acclaimed for caring of the poorer people, and actually a lot was done during his presidency and Brazil's inequality was somewhat reduced (mostly reducing the gap between middle class and lower class, rich people were still much richer than the rest). I personally believe that much of what was done was not because of Lula himself, he invested some of the product from Brazil's growth (which was kind of peaking at that time) on the poor, but without the luck of having his terms during “economically good times”, he wouldn’t have done much
He’s currently being investigated, along with many (most of) Brazilian politicians for corruption schemes in which big companies would pay politicians to approve laws that favor them, such as lowering taxes in order to generate big profits.
Temer is the former vice of Dilma. Dilma belongs to the same political party as Lula, however most people agree that she was not as strong and charismatic as Lula and was only elected because of his support (a.k.a. she was his puppet).
Dilma was impeached for doing stuff in order to make the country’s budget look better than it actually was, something that has been done by many presidents and never resulted in impeachment. So, the real reason for her impeachment is that she wasn’t strong enough to keep corruption investigations under control, so the other politicians (from many many different parties, including opposing ones), afraid of the investigations getting closer to them, got rid of her, hoping that her vice president, Temer, a politician from PMDB, a party that opposes to The Workers Party, would be able to stop the investigations. But it was too late, resulting in what we’re seeing now, for the first time in Brazil's history, high grade politicians (including Dilma, Lula, Temer, and so many more) being investigated and some are even going to jail.
It started with people who support Dilma and Lula wanting Temer to be impeached. In my opinion just because they were butt-hurt because of what happened to Dilma. But now Temer is being accused of being involved in a scheme for paying politicians who have gone to jail hoping they won’t tell what they know, and 97% of the population (that’s an actual number from pools) are not happy with him as our president.
In my opinion the only reason for the existence of political parties as they are in Brazil right now is to divide people with different ideologies. So they fight against each other instead of against their true enemy: the corrupt politicians, who don’t really care about parties or ideology, and just want to make as much money as possible during their terms. I truly hope people will open their eyes soon and realize this, so we could get something good out of this situation of so much crisis and instability, and maybe have a better future for our country.
I usually go out early to have my breakfast at Restaurante de Universidade (RU). Every morning (even in the weekends) they have porridge with bread. It's simple, fast and a good start of the day. And this all for just €0,26, amazing! But the waiting queue is often very long.
During lunch I go too to the RU or MU, at the RU you always get your food on a metal dining plate. This gave me the first time a really prison like feeling, but you get used to it. At MU you can serve yourself, both restaurants have long waiting lines. But I think you only wait for 10 to 15 minutes. Lunch always consists of rice and beans, just like the same for dinner at the restaurant. The only variation every meal is the change in salad and meat or vegetarian food. So it is really easy and cheap (€0,51 for lunch or dinner) to eat at the restaurants, but the downside to it is you get really bored soon after every day eating rice and beans twice a day...After lunch and evening meal you can drink a cup of coffee (espresso) with of course a lot of sugar in it. Most of the times I drink one cup after lunch and just watch all the students. And while doing so, I see a concerning happening... A lot of food goes to waste, while people fill their own plates they don't eat all of it. And I must admit, it is difficult with the metal plates divided into sections to see what amount of food you already have. At least this is how I experience the metal plates. But I just want to briefly address some numbers. In Latin America alone, about 200-225 kilograms of food per capita goes to waste or is lost annually. Food that is going to waste in Latin America is enough to feed 300 million people. On a world scale about 1/3 of all the food that is produced goes to waste or is lost in the proces. This amount can feed about 3 billion people. This is astonishing, while knowing that about 805 million people don't have enough to eat. And this while our population keeps growing, with an estimation of 9 billion people in 2050. Scientist are researching how to improve food production efficiency and crop yield while we already produce almost enough food for 9 billion people. Fixing this worldwide problem is a major challenge for current and coming generations.
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| Please click the image to see a fact sheet about the food waste. Or click here to go to a brief explanation about the food waste. |
It's funny, but I also noticed - like in one of the post comments mentioned - that there are a lot of jobs which doen't require you to work hard. For example, in the restaurants of the UFV people who are working there have really small jobs. One serves the porridge, one serve the cutlery, one the butter, one the coffee, one the bread, etc. Other jobs that don't involve hard labor are for instance the people who are guarding the entrance of my apartment building. It is 23 hours a day (no not 24) manned with all they need to do is open and close the door with a button. But they are very nice people. At the entrance of the UFV which is just a road is always a guy overseeing the passers-bys. Guarding profession you also find in the supermarkets. Again an other job is driving around in a vehicle with promotional audio. Some more poorer people walk around the streets to collect aluminium or carton from trash. And one time I was working at my office during my internship and a guy knocked on the door. He offered me some types of bread, at first I thought that guy was from the department and he had something to celebrate. But then I discovered the bread wasn't free 😅. Probably he just bought the bread at the local supermarket and tries to sell it for a higher price, because the bread they also have in the supermarkets. And it really weird such a guy tries to sell things inside a university building. In previous posts I mentioned the cultural difference in greetings and goodbyes. It is really normal to hug people when you have met them, this is even when you meet someone new and when you say goodbye you can give him/her a hug. The hug is the handshake we have in the Netherlands. But a new social thing I noticed is how easy it is to meet new people. And by meet I mean in friendship terms. Maybe it is because I'm a foreigner, or maybe it is because the Brazilian people are just very nice, generous and social people. By easy I mean, just sitting at a bench outside and people will start talking with you, or not... But this way I met 2 people, another just during dinner at RU. The people are here much more open then I know from the Netherlands. And of course, in the Netherlands random people will/can also start a conversation. But this mostly doesn't end in a long term contact which you will see or speak again.
On a Saturday morning I went shopping with Ana (needed a critical advice). The way to shop here is also different, in the Netherlands we have different types of T-shirts, jeans, jackets, etc. and for every type you can choose sizes. Here, they have also different types of every clothing but no choose in sizes. You just look what there is to choose for your size. That's why the clothing was sorted by size and not by type, creating stacks of folded clothes with all different colors. It wasn't really practical either, if you wanted a shirt low in the stack of shirts the whole stack needed to be moved... But despite all this, the shopping went really fast. I planned to just buy 2 T-shirts, but with Ana that wasn't possible so I have learned. Ending up with 4 T-shirts and 2 shirts, but all of them are really nice!
That same day I met a new friend while sitting on a bench. We played some Uno, with her friend and a new guy. After this and some other things, I bought my bustickets for traveling from and to Rio de Janeiro. Now the day was almost ended, I decided to go to a party with latin and African music.
The day after, I needed to wake up early for the coffee which needs my attention even in the weekends... After the coffee, I went together with Pollyanna (a friend of Ana) to the market. There we ate some pastel with cheese and the sugarcane juice. I lunched with her and the housemates, where I cooked some Dutch meal. And in the meantime I'm trying to plan/organize my stuff for traveling. In my next blog you will read all about this coming journey through Rio de Janeiro, Pantanal, Paraty and Ilha Grande. So keep an eye out!
What I think is an important part of the Brazilian culture is the Brazilian politics. I have had many conversations with different Brazilians about the politics in Brazil but also about the immigration problem we have in Europe. Those conversations always give me new points of view to the problems that are happening nowadays in the world. I always wanted to share some of the political information I get from the conversations, but for me who doesn't understand the situation completely it is difficult to write about it. Because of this I'm really excited to announce a guest writer, a Brazilian friend, who will write about his view and the current state of politic events in Brazil. I hope you will enjoy reading it and find it as interesting as I did.
Brazilian politics
 |
| From left to right: Temer, Dilma & Lula |
Lula is a former president of Brazil, he was the leader of a party called "The Workers Party". Lula's party has been opposing the government ever since the party was created, this lasted until Lula was elected.He was acclaimed for caring of the poorer people, and actually a lot was done during his presidency and Brazil's inequality was somewhat reduced (mostly reducing the gap between middle class and lower class, rich people were still much richer than the rest). I personally believe that much of what was done was not because of Lula himself, he invested some of the product from Brazil's growth (which was kind of peaking at that time) on the poor, but without the luck of having his terms during “economically good times”, he wouldn’t have done much
He’s currently being investigated, along with many (most of) Brazilian politicians for corruption schemes in which big companies would pay politicians to approve laws that favor them, such as lowering taxes in order to generate big profits.
Temer is the former vice of Dilma. Dilma belongs to the same political party as Lula, however most people agree that she was not as strong and charismatic as Lula and was only elected because of his support (a.k.a. she was his puppet).
Dilma was impeached for doing stuff in order to make the country’s budget look better than it actually was, something that has been done by many presidents and never resulted in impeachment. So, the real reason for her impeachment is that she wasn’t strong enough to keep corruption investigations under control, so the other politicians (from many many different parties, including opposing ones), afraid of the investigations getting closer to them, got rid of her, hoping that her vice president, Temer, a politician from PMDB, a party that opposes to The Workers Party, would be able to stop the investigations. But it was too late, resulting in what we’re seeing now, for the first time in Brazil's history, high grade politicians (including Dilma, Lula, Temer, and so many more) being investigated and some are even going to jail.
It started with people who support Dilma and Lula wanting Temer to be impeached. In my opinion just because they were butt-hurt because of what happened to Dilma. But now Temer is being accused of being involved in a scheme for paying politicians who have gone to jail hoping they won’t tell what they know, and 97% of the population (that’s an actual number from pools) are not happy with him as our president.
In my opinion the only reason for the existence of political parties as they are in Brazil right now is to divide people with different ideologies. So they fight against each other instead of against their true enemy: the corrupt politicians, who don’t really care about parties or ideology, and just want to make as much money as possible during their terms. I truly hope people will open their eyes soon and realize this, so we could get something good out of this situation of so much crisis and instability, and maybe have a better future for our country.
Written by a Brazilian friend of mine
The next 2 weeks I will travel with my parents like I said to Rio de Janeiro, Pantanal, Paraty and Ilha Grande. Be sure to check my next post, which will be all about my adventures there. I'm really excited to go traveling some more through Brazil. I will see a lot of new things. Peace out!
Met veel plezier weer gelezen Bart! Je mag best vaker schrijven, erg leuk om te lezen.
ReplyDeleteKan niet wachten op jullie reisverslag, hopelijk met veel foto's!
Goeie reis morgen met de bus!
lieve groeten!