I live in São Paulo, but I return to the "Estados Unidos" (USA) twice a year to visit my family, to renew my love affair with peanut butter, and to brush up on my English. It's fun to walk down any street in New York City and hear English. Except that on some streets, you don't hear English. You might hear Spanish, Chinese, Korean or another language, but not English.

That's one of the things I miss about Brazil. In São Paulo, I only hear Portuguese. Even though Brazil is virtually surrounded by Spanish-speaking countries, I have never heard Spanish spoken there.

I miss the Portuguese language. Here in the Estados Unidos, I don't have any opportunities to practice speaking Portuguese. I find it to be a very stimulating challenge to make myself understood to someone who doesn't speak English. It blows my mind when I make a Brazilian laugh with a joke in Portuguese.

I also miss certain words in Portuguese, such as "saudade". According to my Harper Collins dictionary, saudade in English means longing or yearning. I remember in the Brazilian film, Central do Brasil (Central Station), when one of the characters wrote "Eu tenho muitas saudades de você," it was translated as "I miss you very much". That's not quite saudades.

It calls to mind when I used to hear my grandmother talking in her native Yiddish and I would ask her to translate a word into English. She would often say that it was difficult to do because there was no adequate word in English to describe the Yiddish one. Now, with my Portuguese, I finally understand what my grandmother meant.

I miss the weather in Brazil. Here in New York, it is hovering somewhere below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). Upon my recent arrival, when my plane came through the clouds and I could finally see land, I had a sick feeling realizing that snow was on the ground, dirty snow. Brazilians are forever complaining about the weather.

It's always too hot or too cold. I love the climate there. It gets hot, but there's no humidity. That's wonderful. And I especially like the fact that it never gets as cold as it does in Estados Unidos. In addition, there are no hurricanes that threaten the coastal areas where most Brazilians live.

I miss the street fairs (feiras livres) that are quite common in São Paulo. There I can buy fruits and vegetables difficult to find in Estados Unidos, such as agrião (watercress) or mamão (papaya). At the fairs, the prices are cheap when compared to prices in Estados Unidos.

Then again, everything is cheaper in Brazil than in Estados Unidos. In addition, the vendors usually try to entice their customers into buying something by offering free samples. It was a little scary for me at first seeing these guys carrying their cutting knives and gesturing towards their boxes of fruit.

I miss the restaurants in Brazil, not so much because of the food (you obviously can order great food in the Estados Unidos), but for the service. In Brazil, being a waiter is considered an honorable profession.

In the Estados Unidos, it is on the lower level of the economic spectrum. It is not a profession, but a job to do until something better comes along. It is a common belief that New York's restaurants are populated with out of work actors. The service in Brazilian restaurants is outstanding. I always feel as if I'm being treated like royalty.

I miss the most recent telenovela called "Belíssima". It's a typical romantic Brazilian melodrama about a rich family that owns a company that produces the most fashionable line of women's clothing.

What's different is that its setting is São Paulo instead of Rio de Janeiro. It's fun to see outdoor shots of Parque Ibirapuera and interior shots of Mercado Municipal, which are familiar to me.

On the other hand, I don't miss all of the endless talk of political corruption in Brazil. Thankfully, the media here ignores this kind of news coming from Brazil.

Blair A. Lasky was born in Syracuse, New York and educated at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a retired accountant who has been living in São Paulo since September, 2003, giving English classes and writing novels. You can contact Blair at blairlasky@hotmail.com. 

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