Introduction

Welcome to the Gringoes.com email newsletter!
This newsletter pulls together some of the articles, photos, polls and other information that has been published on the Gringoes.com web site over the last week or so. Don't forget to visit the Gringoes.com site to checkout our article archive, useful information pages, classified adverts, services, forum and other pages. So read on and we hope you enjoy the newsletter. As always if you have any comments, such as what you'd like to see more or less of on the site or newsletter, don't hesitate to contact us at gringoes@gringoes.com.
Please note that although we are based in São Paulo, the site and newsletter are for the whole of Brazil. We are particularly interested in hearing from people outside of São Paulo city, specifically Rio de Janeiro and the Northeast, so if you would like to write about your experiences or any topic related to Brazil see our request for "Article Writers" below.
If you're interested to know the origin behind the site name, then read the "Dear Gringo" article here by Dr. G.


Brazil: Then And Now Rondonia

By Lance Belville
October 13, 2008
A review of the documentary, CHILDREN OF THE AMAZON
Opening weekend at the Mill Valley, California, Film Festival swept viewers to the farther reaches of the Brazilian rain forest with the world premiere of CHILDREN OF THE AMAZON by Brazilian/American filmmaker, Denise Zmekhol.
The documentary simultaneously updates viewers on the battle of Brazil‘s native peoples and their rubber tapper allies to save the Amazon rain forest while the forces of modernity saw, dig and pump its riches into the ever- gaping pockets of world trade. It is a struggle that began in earnest at the end of the 19th Century with the first rubber boom and continues to this very hour with economic and often literal ferocity.
While viewers in Brazil and concerned filmgoers worldwide will be familiar with the broad outlines of the problem, filmmaker Zmekhol, brings it all into tight focus, personal, emotional and unique through a lucky turn of fate.
Fifteen years ago, Ms. Zmekhol worked on film crews shooting television documentaries in the Amazon among the Surui and Negarote tribes, largely in Rondonia. It was a time when the martyred Chico Mendes was forging alliances between his National Council of Rubber Tappers, whose work does not destroy the forest, and area tribes battling to stop the incursions that Brazilian government road building and the resulting heightened deforestation. Great swaths of the jungle were and are being cut and burned for cattle-raising and agriculture.
…click here to read the rest of the article>>


Looking for Brazil´s Moon Under Water

By John Fitzpatrick
October 13, 2008
In 1946 George Orwell wrote an article in which he described his favorite pub which was called The Moon Under Water. After outlining all the features that made it perfect (including, believe it or not, that it sold loose tobacco as well as cigarettes) he ended by revealing that it did not actually exist as it was too perfect. Well, smoky English pubs are not my scene but finding an idyllic hidey hole by the sea has been a dream since I first visited Brazil more than 20 years ago. About two years ago I finally found a place which matches a lot of my desires and I have just booked my fourth stay there for the upcoming holidays.
The place is not in some distant, isolated spot but only about 100 miles from São Paulo and is fairly well known. It is next to a small town which is barely touched by commercialism. My fear is that this will change and it will become more popular, condominiums will start being built, fancy restaurants and nightclubs will spring up, and the whole relaxed atmosphere will disappear. It will become like Ubatuba or Boiçucanga, admittedly great places but too much like São Paulo sur mer for my liking.
…click here to read the rest of the article>>


Brazil Through Foreign Eyes

October 10, 2008
Meet Joel Barsky who recently moved to Brazil from New York city. Read the following interview in which he tells us about some of his most memorable experiences and gives some useful advice to newcomers.
1. Tell us a little about yourself, where are you from, what do you do etc.?
My name is Joel Barsky. I am from New York city, and I am an English teacher. I‘ve been a high school and middle school teacher and a limo driver in New York. I lived in NYC for the past 40 years before moving to Brazil.
2. When did you arrive in Brazil and what brought you here?
I arrived in Brazil this past June 26. While I have been here about 5 times before, I came this time with the intention of creating a life for myself. I have two boys, Marcio, 9, and Evan, 7, who live in Rio das Ostras, with their mother. They were both born in New York, and around 4 years ago moved here with their mom. They visited me in NY and I visited them here many times since, but this time I decided to stay, be close to them every day, and see if I could create something good for myself. I am teaching private English classes at the moment, and I am also going to teach English at some of the oil companies in Macae.
…click here to read the rest of the article>>


Around Brazil: Rio de Janeiro

By Kieran Dobson
October 10, 2008
Rio's Beaches
A native of Rio de Janeiro city is known as a carioca which is the word for 'native' in the language of the Indians that originally inhabited the area.
Any carioca will know that the beaches of Rio de Janeiro are a big part of the carioca lifestyle and that the trendy Zona Sul or South Zone of Rio is where most of the beach action is. This includes Copacabana and Leme beaches where most of the tourist hotels are located followed by Ipanema and Leblon. The beaches closer to Guanabara Bay are somewhat polluted and therefore avoided by most. Moving further away from the Zona Sul beaches you will encounter cleaner and more surfer friendly beaches such as São Conrado, also the site for hang gliding or paragliding landing after takeoff from nearby Pedra Bonito mountain. After São Conrado and a journey through one of the many tunnels that go through the many mountains in and around the city you will enter beautiful Barra da Tijuca. The sign says for you to smile as you enter Barra and so you should, because there is 20 kilometres of uninterrupted golden beaches till the end of Recreio. Of course if you like surfing you‘ll be smiling and loving Barra, there is also a kitesurfing dedicated area at Praia do Pepe, one of the principal hotspots in Barra for all the hip people to pose and soak up the sun.
…click here to read the rest of the article>>


Gringoes Poll

Last fortnight's poll was on racism in Brazil. There are varied opinions about whether people in Brazil suffer from racism or not. Is it something you've witnessed, directly experienced, or never seen? Thankfully it is something most of you have not experienced, with 37% voting "Never", 27% have "Witnessed It", 19% have experienced it "Directly", and 17% "Indirectly".
This fortnight's poll is on in the beauty, or not, of Brazilian people. Brazilians are often cited as being the most beautiful people in the world, at least by Brazilians. Do you agree, or disagree? If you haven't yet voted go to our homepage and look for the poll in the left-hand column.
If you can't stand our poll ideas and have better ones, or are curious about some aspect of the Gringoes.com readers, then send your ideas to us at mark@gringoes.com with "Poll Idea" in the subject. If we choose your poll you will get a credit in the newsletter, as well as the satisfaction of seeing what the answers are!


Interviews

If you would like to be in our Brazil Through Foreign Eyes, or Foreigners Through Brazilian Eyes series please send us an email. As you can see it doesn't matter if you're a foreigner to Brazil, or Brazilian, we're still interested to hear from you. The interview series is a fascinating look at how real people are enjoying Brazil, and equally how Brazilians really see foreigners. They also give various tips on what to see in Brazil, and how to survive here.
The interview itself is a set of around 15 easy-to-answer questions, and ideally we like a digital photo of you as well we can place with the interview.
So if you're interested, don't be shy, send a blank email to mark@gringoes.com with "Interview" in the subject. We will then send you the questions, and instructions on how to complete. We'd love to hear from you!
A gentle reminder to those who have been sent questions. Please don't forget to complete and return them!

Please send this email to anyone you think might find it interesting. If you have not yet registered with gringoes.com and would like to receive future newsletters click here. If you have mistakenly received this message, or would no longer like to receive mail from us, then please reply to this email with the word 'take out' in the subject line. If you are unsubscribing because the newsletter doesn't meet your needs then please let us know how we can improve it.

Photo of the Week

The photo of the week is titled Broken Accordian taken by Mike Stricklin in Novo Santo Antonio, PI. Click here to see the photo.
Thanks to all those who've sent in photos based on our request, but we can always do with more. So if you have a funny or unusual photo depicting life in Brazil please send it to gringoes@gringoes.com with ‘Photo of the Week’ in the subject line. Ideally we are after photos that are of something a little different, not traditional shots of beaches and sunsets. Please send relatively high resolution images (0.5 Megapixel / 640 x 480 or bigger), and let us know where you took the photo and if you have a title for it.


Brazil: Bring Sean Home

October 10, 2008
Next week is the annual conference of the International Bar Association. One of the speakers on children's rights at that conference will be Paulo Lins e Silva. The Lins e Silva family are well regarded internationally known attorneys that specialize in family law. They are also harboring a child that is the victim of an International Parental Abduction.
This is a tragic case, where for over 4 years the child's father, David Goldman has been fighting to regain custody of his son. All US legal cases have favored Mr. Goldman. Several branches of the Brazilian Government now agree that under the Hague Convention, Sean should be returned to his father. Paulo Lins e Silva's son, Joao Paulo, married Mr. Goldman's former wife, Bruna Bianchi. Bruna and her parents abducted the child 4 years ago. Bruna died tragically in August of this year and Mr. Goldman is the sole living parent of the child, yet the child remains in Brazil with the Lins e Silva family and Mr. Goldman has not seen his child in 4 years! Not only have the Lins e Silva family refused to grant visitation, although legally required to do so, they have now petitioned to have Mr. Goldman's name removed from Sean's birth certificate. This would not only erase Sean's paternal identity, it would also erase his US Citizenship. As if that was not enough, they also recently sought and obtained a court order to preclude a local Brazilian TV station from airing the story.
…click here to read the rest of the article>>


Brazil´s Lula Finally Stops Playing the Blame Game

By John Fitzpatrick
October 10, 2008
Brazil´s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is not a happy man at the moment as the international financial crisis threatens the achievements he has overseen over the last six years. The prospect of his last two years in office ending on a low note has revived the old-style Lula who hates bosses and gringos and led to a few foolish outbursts. Fortunately though, his reactions to the crisis to date have been more like those of a grumpy old man who just wants to have a good old moan than someone who is about to do something drastic and make a bad situation even worse.
Until now Lula has adopted a King Canute policy to the crisis, insisting that it would not spread over into Brazil. He used a variety of fairly strong arguments to justify his case: the fact that Brazil was now less reliant on trade with the United States and European countries, thanks to the rise of China; the Central Bank´s treasury chest of over US$200 billion in foreign reserves; the discovery of huge offshore oil and natural gas deposits; obtaining investment grade status from two of the world´s main ratings agencies; controlled inflation; rising formal employment; and a healthy (albeit declining) trade balance, amongst others. He seemed almost gleeful at times as the situation in the US worsened. However, his mocking of George Bush and attempts to blame him - "The press keeps asking me about the American crisis. I say: ask Bush. It´s his crisis, not mine." - have ended and he now knows that Brazil is on the front line and it is time to take action.
…click here to read the rest of the article>>


Brazil: Back to School Part 2

By Sven Erik van ‘t Veer
October 3, 2008
This is part 2 of Sven‘s article about the difficulties of getting foreign education certificates recognised in Brazil. To read part 1 click here.
Brazil Mode
By this time my high school diplomas came back by SEDEX. Obviously ornamented with some nice stamps. This is quite an amount of paper and the translations cost me some R$300, including the stamps. In order to have them revalidated, only copies are needed, but obviously these need to be authenticated. So I took my stack of paper and went on to the nearest cartorio. Since copies are needed from both the translations as well as from the original copies and because things such as a stamp are translated as [carimbo], documents that span one page suddenly become 2 a lot of stamps and stickers had to be placed. This set me back another R$127.
Since I was not in Brazil mode, I quickly went back to the university to see if this was now enough to get admitted. And obviously I was wrong. They now told me these had to be recognized as being equivalent to a Brazilian high school diploma. This kinda pisses me off. Get real, high school in Brazil is 4 hours (50 min each) per day for 4 years, while in the Netherlands it is 7 hours a day for SIX years. It‘s not equivalent but bloody superior.
…click here to read the rest of the article>>


Food and Drink in Brazil - The Land of Plenty

By Kieran Dobson
October 3, 2008
Brazil is the land of plenty, the abundance of fertile land and rainfall in most parts means that food should never be lacking and the variety is overwhelming: churrasco, pastel com caldo de cana, açai, bolinho de aipim com carne seca, bobo de camarão, moqueca, pé-de-moleque... What‘s that? You‘ve either got no idea what you just read or you‘re drooling from the mouth after being bombarded with an array of delicious Brazilian cuisine.
The effect of 500 years of immigration beginning with the Portuguese colonisation and later influences from around the globe have contributed to Brazilian cuisine. There is a strong African influence in Bahian cuisine due to the slave trade being centred around Salvador, the capital of Bahia. Shrimp, seafood, coconut milk, palm oil are common ingredients in the dishes here. Minas Gerais is a state rich in agricultural production, the white cheese is often referred to as Queijo Minas (Minas Cheese) as a lot of dairy products come from this state. Comida Mineira is also famed throughout Brazil, offering a selection of very filling meat and pork dishes, with rich sauces. It is also renowned for its cachaça production.
…click here to read the rest of the article>>


Discussion Forum

If you've not had a chance yet then pop over to our web forum, register, and start joining in the discussion about Brazil. There are many forum areas such as Living in Brazil, Teaching English, Visas and Documentation, and even a place to Vent Your Frustrations! If you've got some burning question about Brazil, or just want to discuss a particular topic, then you're bound to get an answer there.
There's also a forum which allows you to comment and give us feedback on Gringoes.com, either with your views about past articles, areas of the site, or to make suggestions for future articles and content.
Note that foul language, abusive posts and certain types of advertising in the forum will not be tolerated. Make sure to check the Read This First area first before posting. The forum is intended to be a constructive and lighthearted place for discussion about Brazil.


Forex

The US Dollar has risen sharply again over the fortnight, from R$1.91 to R$2.08. The Euro has also risen similarly, from R$2.68 to R$2.81. The British Pound has also risen sharply, from R$3.38 to R$3.61.