Collective musings
I've been jotting down topics that I wanted to mention, so now that I have a little time, here we go...
Labor market & economy
As I mentioned in a previous post, there is a very large pool of people working for minimal salaries. In addition to the street cleaners (see below), you also have the money changers on the buses, the gas station attendants (all gas stations are still full-service), the security personnel, the street vendors, and of course, the domestic help. A large part of the glut of unskilled labor is the result of a mass rural migration to the cities during the military dictatorship (1964-1982). It is the same story of economic immigrants the world over--when a family is no longer able to support itself in the local economy, one family member leaves for the city to try to find a better job that will support the family. If s/he is successful, other family members may follow. Here, as in many places, the poor are being pushed further and further away from the cities, and the only affordable housing is a significant distance away from their jobs. Several of the people I've talked to with these types of jobs were not born in this city but came here looking for work.
Cost of living
The unit of Brazilian currency is the Real (pronounced "hay-ál"; BRL), and the plural is Reais (pronounced "hay-íce"). For reference, the current exchange rate is about 2.25 BRL to the dollar.
The minimum legal salary here is about 325 Reais/month. To take one bus to and from work costs 3.30 BRL/day or 66 BRL/month. More likely, however, one has to take one inter-city bus (more expensive) plus one local bus, which brings your transportation costs up to 8.10 BRL/day or 162 BRL/month. So right off the bat, you've lost half your salary just for transportation. Rent in the cheaper, distant suburbs can run around 250 BRL/month for a 2BR apartment. Rent where I live, in the closer suburbs can run around 400 BRL/month for the same apartment. [Note #1: It's difficult to get accurate information on rents here since the advertisements usually do not mention the property's rent--only a description of the property and a phone number. This is strange to me because the properties for sale do advertise the prices.]
You can budget about 60 BRL/month per person for food. [Note #2: Some jobs do provide bus tickets and meal vouchers for lunch.] So a person who has to rent a place has to really scramble to survive if his/her employer doesn't pay for transportation. Health care here is, in theory, socialized, but it can take weeks or months to get an appointment with a physician, and then many families do not have the money to purchase medicines if they receive prescriptions. Modes of survival include extended families living under one roof, selling one's meal vouchers (if one is fortunate enough to receive them), having all persons of working age employed, and eating lots of rice and beans, among other things. Only the "rich" kids are able to attend university full-time. The working class kids hold down one or more jobs during the day (if they can find them) and go to university at night.
Racial awareness
November is Brazil's "Black History Month" of sorts, and November 20th is a specific national commemoration of "Consciousness of the Black race." This does not seem to be widespread (e.g. my friends that are professors in São Paulo state were not previously aware of it and a Web search yields few results), but the educators at both of the projects where I volunteer had activities dedicated to this theme for the kids.
There is a big need for this positive reinforcement, because if you simply looked at the print and television media, you would have no clue how many brown people really live here. Rarely do you see pictures of brown people in newspapers or magazines or on television unless they are entertainers, athletes, criminals, or victims. The only Brazilian TV show featuring a mostly Black cast of which I'm aware seems to be a take off of the movie "City of God" about gang wars in a Rio slum. The telenovelas might have one or two brown actors, but not main characters with educations, professions, etc.
Dress code
The dress code here is very relaxed compared to the U.S. Employees in many businesses (stores, banks, etc.) wear jeans, and the women often wear tops that would be considered a little too racy for business attire in the U.S. The funny thing is that jeans (and not shorts) are the fashion--no matter how hot it is. One native of this city explained that in cities on the coast, people wear shorts everyday, but not here.
Bad TV
Brazilians are famous for their obsession with soccer. Each weekend when major soccer matches are broadcast live on television, I can hear the entire neighborhood reacting to the game, screaming, honking and shooting off fireworks. Last night the best team from this region suffered a major loss, and today the front page of the sports section is all black.
Running a close second to soccer is the evening soap opera, or "telenovela." Imagine if Dynasty or Dallas came on TV every weeknight for months at a time, and if at least 5% of every form of media in the country was dedicated to discussing the story line and other mundane details, from Time magazine to the Washington Post and the CBS Evening News, not to mention the radio stations and all of the smaller, local media outlets. And it's not just the women who watch! You are totally left out of water cooler discussions if you haven't seen the latest soccer match or watched the most popular telenovela.
It is amazing, a) how much television programming is imported, b) how much is imported from the U.S. and c) how much BAD stuff is imported from the U.S. Particularly movies. It's hard to tell what movies are ahead of time because they are often given a different title in Portuguese. I saw something starting on HBO the other night that was in English with actors' names that I did not recognize, so I figured it must be British. Wrong! It was just a really bad American film that probably never made it to the theaters. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to watch TV here and just given up. Admittedly, I've never been much of a TV fan, but this is extreme. The other thing is that the cable guide channel seems to have a rather high error rate, sometimes having the completely wrong date, often listing the wrong names of programs.
Sensory overload
I'm not sure why, but the smell of sewage is semi-ubiquitous here. Even in our upper-middle-class apartment, for example, there is a nearly constant odor emanating from pipes and drains. My rusty chemist's nose tells me it's mostly the odor of sulphur, so I don't know if that's part of the water treatment or what. Add to that the heady frangrance of flowering trees and shrubs that are found all over the city, and you feel like you're crossing the battlefield of radically opposing scents as you move from one olfactory zone to the next.
Litterbugs extraordinaire
Many people here have the habit of throwing their trash on the street whereever they may happen to find themselves. While the city does employ a sizeable street-sweeping crew (who are often armed with rudimentary brooms made of palm leaves), they simply can not keep up with the supply of litter. Here, as in the U.S., there may be a weak connection between littering and educational level, but it's more likely a matter of how your family trained you. People also dump a lot of trash and debris in empty lots, so it can sometimes remind you of Eden's junkyard.
To flush or not to flush
Until I traveled to the Republic of Georgia, I had never encountered toilets where you were not supposed to flush the toilet paper but put it in a wastebasket next to the toilet. The toilets in several areas here are the same, and sometimes it's hard to remember where the paper goes in a particular location. The general idea, as I understand it, is that the paper will cause problems with the pipes. In many of the no-flush places, the water pressure in the toilets is not sufficient to remove the paper from the bowl.
The trickle up theory
One of the major problems here seems to be the trickle up theory. This economic system basically adds lots of fees and taxes that do not seem to produce noticeable results other than new Mercedes sedans or beach homes. Taxes on cars manufactured here are close to 100%, and are much higher for cars manufactured abroad. Banks seem to be some of the biggest offenders of trickling up. I have not done my economic research to understand the history and mechanism of the banking system here, but I can guess that at least part of it comes as a method of surviving previously unpredictable inflation and economic crises. The banks here not only charge fees for things like their counterparts in the U.S. (e.g. monthly fee, ATM withdrawal fee, etc.) but they also tack on a per transaction fee (less than 1%) for every single transaction.
They don't like him either
Bush was in Brazil a few weeks ago, and there was noticeable protest downtown during that time, including banners that declared him "#1 enemy of humanity." There was much speculation in the media here about potential comiseration between him and "Lula," the president of Brazil, whose administration is currently under investigation for corruption.
OCD nightmare
This is not the place to be if you like to have everything hermetically sealed and sterilized. In many restrooms, for example, you have soap and a communal towel. Cups and glasses are often reused with only a perfunctory rinsing (or none at all) between users.
Ants vs. flies
Insects are much more plentiful here--probably a combination of climate, less spraying of pesticides (by individuals as well as the local governments), lack of screens and habitat (on undeveloped land in this area, you see sizeable ant/termite hills all over). Ants, particularly the tiny ones, can seemingly get to any height within a building, and if there's sugar to be found, they're all over it. People are very tolerant of the ants, but not of the flies, which seem to multiply after it rains.
Asking for directions
I must admit that one of the games that I've always played when traveling abroad is the "pretend to be a native as long as possible" game. I would take extreme pride at not whipping out my dictionary, not asking people if they spoke English and not asking for directions. Here, everybody asks for directions (even the men!) when walking, on the bus, etc. It's normal to strike up conversations with strangers, so people are used to being approached by strangers. I have even been asked for directions here as I've been waiting for the bus. I am slowly re-training myself to whip out the "I'm sorry--I'm learning Portuguese. Would you please repeat that?" phrase much less reluctuantly. The results have been great. It's just a matter of quieting the inner "I want to be independent and do it by myself!" voice.
Labor market & economy
As I mentioned in a previous post, there is a very large pool of people working for minimal salaries. In addition to the street cleaners (see below), you also have the money changers on the buses, the gas station attendants (all gas stations are still full-service), the security personnel, the street vendors, and of course, the domestic help. A large part of the glut of unskilled labor is the result of a mass rural migration to the cities during the military dictatorship (1964-1982). It is the same story of economic immigrants the world over--when a family is no longer able to support itself in the local economy, one family member leaves for the city to try to find a better job that will support the family. If s/he is successful, other family members may follow. Here, as in many places, the poor are being pushed further and further away from the cities, and the only affordable housing is a significant distance away from their jobs. Several of the people I've talked to with these types of jobs were not born in this city but came here looking for work.
Cost of living
The unit of Brazilian currency is the Real (pronounced "hay-ál"; BRL), and the plural is Reais (pronounced "hay-íce"). For reference, the current exchange rate is about 2.25 BRL to the dollar.
The minimum legal salary here is about 325 Reais/month. To take one bus to and from work costs 3.30 BRL/day or 66 BRL/month. More likely, however, one has to take one inter-city bus (more expensive) plus one local bus, which brings your transportation costs up to 8.10 BRL/day or 162 BRL/month. So right off the bat, you've lost half your salary just for transportation. Rent in the cheaper, distant suburbs can run around 250 BRL/month for a 2BR apartment. Rent where I live, in the closer suburbs can run around 400 BRL/month for the same apartment. [Note #1: It's difficult to get accurate information on rents here since the advertisements usually do not mention the property's rent--only a description of the property and a phone number. This is strange to me because the properties for sale do advertise the prices.]
You can budget about 60 BRL/month per person for food. [Note #2: Some jobs do provide bus tickets and meal vouchers for lunch.] So a person who has to rent a place has to really scramble to survive if his/her employer doesn't pay for transportation. Health care here is, in theory, socialized, but it can take weeks or months to get an appointment with a physician, and then many families do not have the money to purchase medicines if they receive prescriptions. Modes of survival include extended families living under one roof, selling one's meal vouchers (if one is fortunate enough to receive them), having all persons of working age employed, and eating lots of rice and beans, among other things. Only the "rich" kids are able to attend university full-time. The working class kids hold down one or more jobs during the day (if they can find them) and go to university at night.
Racial awareness
November is Brazil's "Black History Month" of sorts, and November 20th is a specific national commemoration of "Consciousness of the Black race." This does not seem to be widespread (e.g. my friends that are professors in São Paulo state were not previously aware of it and a Web search yields few results), but the educators at both of the projects where I volunteer had activities dedicated to this theme for the kids.
There is a big need for this positive reinforcement, because if you simply looked at the print and television media, you would have no clue how many brown people really live here. Rarely do you see pictures of brown people in newspapers or magazines or on television unless they are entertainers, athletes, criminals, or victims. The only Brazilian TV show featuring a mostly Black cast of which I'm aware seems to be a take off of the movie "City of God" about gang wars in a Rio slum. The telenovelas might have one or two brown actors, but not main characters with educations, professions, etc.
Dress code
The dress code here is very relaxed compared to the U.S. Employees in many businesses (stores, banks, etc.) wear jeans, and the women often wear tops that would be considered a little too racy for business attire in the U.S. The funny thing is that jeans (and not shorts) are the fashion--no matter how hot it is. One native of this city explained that in cities on the coast, people wear shorts everyday, but not here.
Bad TV
Brazilians are famous for their obsession with soccer. Each weekend when major soccer matches are broadcast live on television, I can hear the entire neighborhood reacting to the game, screaming, honking and shooting off fireworks. Last night the best team from this region suffered a major loss, and today the front page of the sports section is all black.
Running a close second to soccer is the evening soap opera, or "telenovela." Imagine if Dynasty or Dallas came on TV every weeknight for months at a time, and if at least 5% of every form of media in the country was dedicated to discussing the story line and other mundane details, from Time magazine to the Washington Post and the CBS Evening News, not to mention the radio stations and all of the smaller, local media outlets. And it's not just the women who watch! You are totally left out of water cooler discussions if you haven't seen the latest soccer match or watched the most popular telenovela.
It is amazing, a) how much television programming is imported, b) how much is imported from the U.S. and c) how much BAD stuff is imported from the U.S. Particularly movies. It's hard to tell what movies are ahead of time because they are often given a different title in Portuguese. I saw something starting on HBO the other night that was in English with actors' names that I did not recognize, so I figured it must be British. Wrong! It was just a really bad American film that probably never made it to the theaters. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to watch TV here and just given up. Admittedly, I've never been much of a TV fan, but this is extreme. The other thing is that the cable guide channel seems to have a rather high error rate, sometimes having the completely wrong date, often listing the wrong names of programs.
Sensory overload
I'm not sure why, but the smell of sewage is semi-ubiquitous here. Even in our upper-middle-class apartment, for example, there is a nearly constant odor emanating from pipes and drains. My rusty chemist's nose tells me it's mostly the odor of sulphur, so I don't know if that's part of the water treatment or what. Add to that the heady frangrance of flowering trees and shrubs that are found all over the city, and you feel like you're crossing the battlefield of radically opposing scents as you move from one olfactory zone to the next.
Litterbugs extraordinaire
Many people here have the habit of throwing their trash on the street whereever they may happen to find themselves. While the city does employ a sizeable street-sweeping crew (who are often armed with rudimentary brooms made of palm leaves), they simply can not keep up with the supply of litter. Here, as in the U.S., there may be a weak connection between littering and educational level, but it's more likely a matter of how your family trained you. People also dump a lot of trash and debris in empty lots, so it can sometimes remind you of Eden's junkyard.
To flush or not to flush
Until I traveled to the Republic of Georgia, I had never encountered toilets where you were not supposed to flush the toilet paper but put it in a wastebasket next to the toilet. The toilets in several areas here are the same, and sometimes it's hard to remember where the paper goes in a particular location. The general idea, as I understand it, is that the paper will cause problems with the pipes. In many of the no-flush places, the water pressure in the toilets is not sufficient to remove the paper from the bowl.
The trickle up theory
One of the major problems here seems to be the trickle up theory. This economic system basically adds lots of fees and taxes that do not seem to produce noticeable results other than new Mercedes sedans or beach homes. Taxes on cars manufactured here are close to 100%, and are much higher for cars manufactured abroad. Banks seem to be some of the biggest offenders of trickling up. I have not done my economic research to understand the history and mechanism of the banking system here, but I can guess that at least part of it comes as a method of surviving previously unpredictable inflation and economic crises. The banks here not only charge fees for things like their counterparts in the U.S. (e.g. monthly fee, ATM withdrawal fee, etc.) but they also tack on a per transaction fee (less than 1%) for every single transaction.
They don't like him either
Bush was in Brazil a few weeks ago, and there was noticeable protest downtown during that time, including banners that declared him "#1 enemy of humanity." There was much speculation in the media here about potential comiseration between him and "Lula," the president of Brazil, whose administration is currently under investigation for corruption.
OCD nightmare
This is not the place to be if you like to have everything hermetically sealed and sterilized. In many restrooms, for example, you have soap and a communal towel. Cups and glasses are often reused with only a perfunctory rinsing (or none at all) between users.
Ants vs. flies
Insects are much more plentiful here--probably a combination of climate, less spraying of pesticides (by individuals as well as the local governments), lack of screens and habitat (on undeveloped land in this area, you see sizeable ant/termite hills all over). Ants, particularly the tiny ones, can seemingly get to any height within a building, and if there's sugar to be found, they're all over it. People are very tolerant of the ants, but not of the flies, which seem to multiply after it rains.
Asking for directions
I must admit that one of the games that I've always played when traveling abroad is the "pretend to be a native as long as possible" game. I would take extreme pride at not whipping out my dictionary, not asking people if they spoke English and not asking for directions. Here, everybody asks for directions (even the men!) when walking, on the bus, etc. It's normal to strike up conversations with strangers, so people are used to being approached by strangers. I have even been asked for directions here as I've been waiting for the bus. I am slowly re-training myself to whip out the "I'm sorry--I'm learning Portuguese. Would you please repeat that?" phrase much less reluctuantly. The results have been great. It's just a matter of quieting the inner "I want to be independent and do it by myself!" voice.
posted by Christine Piggee at
10:25 AM
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