This is Brazil

It has been over ten years I live in Brazil now, and I have never really written about the country. Moreover, I have a permanent position as a professor now, so I can give my opinion without much risk of being deported :-).

The title of the blog is inspired on the acronym TIA = This Is Africa, which appears in the film Blood Diamonds. I forgot he exact context, but many times I had and still have this TIB experience. And this can be both positive and negative.

Brazilians are rather fatalistic about their country. There famous phrase is "Só no Brasil" -- Only in Brazil [such things happens]. Even though at least half of the time such things also happen in other countries.

I have decided to write this blog in English for at least three reasons:

1. I type faster.
2. Like this my family and friends can read it too, whereas all my Brazilian friends can read English
   
3. Thinking in English it will be easier to maintain a distance, using Dutch or Canadian reasoning. In fact, I live her now for ten years and in many respects I have changed, have become a Brazilian too. But now, this change of jobs will help me to see things with new, critical eyes again.