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Brazil: Probably the Best Country in the World to Live In
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By Stephen Thompson
I‘ve been living in São Paulo for the last five years, and sometimes I get fed up with the traffic, pollution, crime, and the high cost of living;
relative to local wages. I go back to the UK, but after a few weeks in London I come full circle and start missing Brazil. This is about some of the things I really like about Brazil: the informality of the people, the vastness and beauty of the land, and, of course, the weather.
Informality
The Brazilian writer Sergio Buarque de Holanda described the typical Brazilian as the "homen cordial", or cordial man, by which he referred to the informality, tolerance and easy-going nature of most Brazilian social interaction, when compared to other cultures. This lack of formality is especially evident when making arrangements.
In Brazil, if you make an arrangement to meet someone, it‘s normally okay to cancel up until the last minute, if you don‘t feel like going. In fact, it‘s better to ring and confirm arrangements, or you may be left hanging around waiting. But you‘ll come to appreciate the advantages of flexibility, and find it hard to get used to the formality again when you go back home. When cancelling an arrangement, no one will get annoyed, or tell you that you have messed up their day. You don‘t have to invent any excuses either, it‘s good enough to say that it‘s raining too hard, or it‘s too sunny, or you‘re feeling a bit tired.
If you‘re out and about in town and you need to relieve yourself after drinking too much mineral water, it will not be hard to find an establishment prepared to let you use their facility. No one will say to you, as adults used to when I was a child, "you should have gone to the toilet before you left home!". How relaxing this is compared to London, where if you ask to use the toilet in a public eating establishment, you may be politely refused. Indeed in other ways, Brazilians exhibits are relaxed, easy-going attitude to social mores, which feels liberating.
Land
Brazil is one of the few countries in the world which still has large tracts of relatively unexplored and exploited land. Even with a population of 170 million, growing at 2% a year, Brazil still has plenty of space per person, more than larger countries such as the US, Russia and China. If you paddle far enough up the Amazon, you can claim land for yourself, farm it, build on it, live on it, all without paying a penny.
If you don‘t want to be dependent on river transport, there are still lots of places within a few hours drive of São Paulo, where you can buy a small farm for the price of a new car. In fact, if you look at the small ads in local papers in São Paulo, you can see owners of such farms accepting cars in payments or part payment for their real estate.
The snag is that you have to occupy the land in order to retain title. If you move away, and the land is "invadido" or squatted on, you will eventually lose your title to the land, resort to the courts which can be expensive.
For this reason, most rural property owners who don‘t reside on their property full-time employ a caseiro, a caretaker, who for a minimum wage, will keep an eye on the property, and do some maintenance work. This expense is a disincentive to ownership of these kind of properties, and to some extent explains the relatively low prices. But if you‘re planning on staying for a while, retiring, or dropping out of the rat race, you can get a home far better than you ever had back home for a fraction of the price.
For example, last year I saw a 35,000 square metre farm, with a beautiful waterfall at the bottom, just 4 hours drive from São Paulo, and only 20 minutes from the historic city of Parity, with its excellent diving and sailing opportunities. 35,000 square metres is only a small farm, but is still about 500 times larger than my one-bedroom apartment in London was. An asking price was only 1/10th of what we sold our apartment for.
If you‘re not a total recluse though, you‘re probably going to want to keep in touch with the rest of the world, which means spending money on cell phones, satellite receivers, and a car, all of which are expensive in Brazil. But set against this are other savings you can make on food, by eating the bananas and other fruit which grow on the land. There are few better things in life than growing your own food and knowing that it ready is organic, and not just a marketing scam to make you pay more at the supermarket.
Weather
Another great thing about Brazil is the weather. There are few countries in the world which have such variety of weather. Brazil has tropical, subtropical and Mediterranean climate zones. But while variety is great, what we Europeans really crave is sun in the Southern hills, it even snows lightly in the winter. But most of the year round, in most of Brazil, you can walk around in a T-shirt, and if that‘s not true, you can be sure that you won‘t need a heavy coat or gloves. In Brazil, it gets warmer as you drive north.
Brazilians complain about the cold in São Paulo, because they‘re not used to real cold, but even in their winter, in the middle of the day, it can often reach 30°C (86°F) or more. True, the temperature can drop to 10°C (50°F) or less at night, but if this kind of weather is too rigorous for you, you can always drive up north!
Of course there are downsides to life in Brazil; one of them is the ever present fear of crime; 45,000 homicides a year is a frighteningly large number. But most of these killings are due to drug disputes between gangs. And casual mindless violence of the kind that is common in some British pubs is unusual. Violence in Brazil is economic rather than cultural, and most Brazilians are charming, easy-going and non-aggressive.
If you learn Portuguese, you may be able to persuade thieves not to kill you. A friend of mine was recently robbed of his camera gear; thieves drove him up an abandoned track, and said they were going to shoot him after they took his stuff. "I won‘t tell anyone" he said. "I have a wife and daughter to support" etc. Learn Portuguese.
Brazil is not a safe or stable place to live in, but you can reduce the risks. Keep a low profile, and don‘t be ostentatious. Be friendly with your neighbours, they will look out for you. Avoid driving, you reduce the risk of being a victim of crime greatly, as thieves often target motorists. Keep away from downtown areas in big cities, especially red light districts in Río de Janeiro, Salvador and São Paulo.
Not all forms of crime are worse in Brazil; I have had my bicycle stolen only once there, whereas I have lost more than 10 bicycles to bicycle thieves in London.
Although there can be a few mildly irritating bureaucratic hassles, if you‘re patient, you can get most things done in the end, and there are services to help you, like the despachante.
Stephen Thompson runs "O Gaucho", a snack bar serving breakfast, juices, smoothies and sandwiches. Galeria 2001, 2001 Avenida Paulista, São Paulo. For an English menu contact stephenthompson@hotmail.com
To read previous articles by Stephen click the links below:
Great Brazilian Inventions: The Kilo Restaurant
Brazil: Things you wanted to know... and will never know!
Brazil: Expensive, Trendy, and Extremely Beautiful
Brazil: Not Really British Enough
Package Holidays to Brazil are Back On Track
Brazil: Reverse Culture Shock
Brazil: The Legal System
Brazil: Saying Goodbye to a Bilingual Kid
How to get Brazilian Citizenship
Getting Work in Brazil
Acquiring and Running a Small Business in Brazil
Brazil: To Free Or Not To Free
Brazil: Trail Biking in Chapada Diamantinha
Brazil: So Near, but So Far Apart
How to Get Into University in Brazil
The Pleasure of Driving a Car in Brazil
Brazil: The Bairro of Flamengo in Río de Janeiro
Brazil: The Information Technology Law
Managing a Brazilian bank account
Brazil‘s Middle Class Ruled By Political Apathy
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5/8/2006
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