Brazzil

Brazil's international trade policies and strategies must improve dramatically, especially where high-tech, big ticket items are concerned, there are no shoulders to cry on and it will be dog eat dog for the most part. So if Brazil wants to play with the big boys, it will have to look and act like one.
By Brazzil Magazine

With a certificate of virginity in hand issued by Rio's IML (Instituto Médico Legal—Medical Legal Institute), stripper Ana Flávia Tarcitano, 22, breasts exposed, was shining by herself at the Obsession Flower float, part of escola de samba Unidos da Tijuca's The Virgins' group. "It is a paradox to pose as virgin in the Carnaval parade, but I do my work honestly. You cannot mistake liberty for libertinage. I am the only here who proved her own virginity." As for keeping her virginity among so much temptation the belle was emphatic that she didn't make any vow of chastity and is not thinking about joining the Carmelite sisters. "I haven't met anyone that's worthwhile. That's all."

Ana Flávia was only one of the hundreds of naked or semi-naked women taking part in the popular Rio's escola de sambas' parade that happens every Carnaval season broadcast live to the whole country. Other virgins weren't that adamant about their virginal condition. Gisele de Oliveira, 22, confessed being a virgin "only once in a while" And Cristiana Monteiro, 19, admitted that "it depends on which virginity you're talking about."

Rio's Carnaval can't live without international celebrities and this year was no exception. Among the big names who made it this year to the Sambódromo—the venue for the parade—was top model and homegrown Gisele Bündchen and Hollywood tough guy Arnold Schwarzenegger. The actor was so mellow, accessible and seemed to be enjoying everything so much that he got the nickname of Chuchu (pronounced shoo-shoo).

Full of contradictions, Carnaval in Rio, while exhibiting nude bodies and debauchery explores also religious themes. Practically every big escola de samba chose this year to highlight religiosity. While samba club Paraíso do Tuiuti exalted Islamism and Judaism, Mocidade Independente, Grande Rio and Caprichosos de Pilares had Christian messages to fit the common theme of the parade: peace. Beija-Flor and Imperatriz Leopoldinense, on the other side, paid tribute to candomblé (African religion) and witchcraft. Several escolas celebrated the arrival of the Era of Aquarium keeping in synch with the peace focus.

Incidentally, Renato Lage and his wife Márcia Lávia, from Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel, had a hand from the Catholic Church to organize their escola. It was catholic priest Marcelo Guimarães, a peace activist, who provided several suggestions on how to develop the peace theme. The cleric, who thinks of the Carnaval parade as an ecumenical celebration, helped to shape the escola's celebrations this year. Lage was inspired by the Bible's Apocalypse to create the opening of the parade and he read Saint Augustine in order to write the samba plot for his escola. Using poetic license he transformed characters as distinct as social activist Betinho, environmentalist working leader Chico Mendes and singer-composer John Lennon into Buddhist monks.

Once again when the envelopes were opened to reveal who had won the title of Rio's best escola de samba—the vote is given for a variety of items by a panel of 40 experts—few people were happy. Escola de samba Beija Flor, which for the third year in a row lost to the champ Imperatriz Leopoldinense accused its rival of buying the judges. "As long as Luizinho (Luiz Pacheco) is in the league, they will never win a Carnaval," said Carlos Rodrigues, one of Imperatriz's director. Coincidentally or not, the president of honor of Imperatriz, Luiz Pacheco Drummond, is also the president of Liesa (Liga das Escolas de Samba—Samba Clubs' League), the body responsible for organizing the Carnaval parade. Rodrigues wanted to know how Imperatriz could have won three 10 (the maximum score) in harmony when it was evident that the escola was rushing during the parade.

Imperatriz could not have made it better. The club from the north neighborhood of Ramos won 300 points of a possible 300, receiving 10 points every judge in every item evaluated. Beija-Flor came in second with 299.5 points and venerable Mangueira ended up in third with 298.5. They were followed by Salgueiro (296.5 points) and Viradouro (293). The two last placed—União da Ilha (274 points) and Paraíso do Tuiuti (260)—will not be able to parade next year with the elite escolas. In their place will be Porto da Pedra and São Clemente. The defeat was particularly bitter for Beija-Flor, which was favored to win this year. This sentiment was shown by leader Neguinho da Beija-Flor who, visibly irritated, told reporters: "Second place for me is the same as last place."

All the results from the special group:

1st Imperatriz - 300 points
2nd Beija-Flor _ 299.5 points
3rd Mangueira _ 298.5 points
4th Salgueiro _ 296.5 points
5th Viradouro - 293 points
6th Grande Rio - 289 points
7th Mocidade - 287 points
8th Tradição - 286 points
9th Unidos da Tijuca _ 280.5 points
10th Portela _ 280.5 points
11th Império Serrano - 280 points
12th Caprichosos _ 277.5 points
13th União da Ilha - 274 points
14th Paraíso do Tuiuti - 260 points

If there's a time of intense work for angels and devils it has to be the four days of Carnaval in Brazil. As always happens during that time, both creatures were quite busy during the Carnaval season. They were even recruited by the Health ministry to promote the use of condoms, a product that was distributed for free by the government at a rate of 22 million units—double of what was distributed last year during the same period—together with 10 million fans, 1.5 million posters, 609 billboards, and 3,500 T-shirts.

The government spent $2.6 million and the material was sent to all state Health Secretariats and to each of the 3356 municipalities in which at least one case of AIDS was found. According to a 1999 survey on Brazilian sexual behavior, 54 percent of single people use a condom for intercourse. This rate falls to 13 percent among those who are married.

In the commercial prepared for TV—Curitiba's ad agency Master was in charge of the ad—a little devil encourages a youngster to make it with a brunette girl during a ball. That's when the angel intervenes reminding the reveler that he doesn't have a condom. To which the devil retorts: "Ah, you blockhead." From the angel perspective there is a happy ending with the guy foregoing sex and the ad flashing its slogan: "It doesn't matter which side you're on. Use a rubber."

The campaign entitled Above Good and Evil was launched by Health minister, José Serra, who presented the Carnaval crusade as part of a larger effort to fight AIDS. "One of our biggest challenges," he said, "is to bring awareness to people who think they are have no risk of getting the disease."

As expected, the Catholic Church—which is against the use of condoms and other contraceptives in any circumstance—condemned the official campaign against AIDS alleging that you cannot put an angel and a devil together the way it was done. "This campaign is harmful," said bishop Raymundo Damasceno, general secretary of CNBB (Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil—National Conference of Brazil's Bishops). "We must not confuse good and evil. Good is good. Evil is evil. And we must always be on the side of good."

Auxiliary bishop Ladislau Biernaski, from Curitiba, who is known as a liberal Catholic leader, didn't like the condom ads either. He was more to the point accusing the campaign of promoting libertinage. Said he, "This effort is completely equivocated inducing debauchery and promiscuity. The Health Ministry believes that Carnaval is licentiousness, that there is no Carnaval without sexual relations. This can lead to the destruction of many families and, mainly, the destruction of youngsters, who start this phase in their lives thinking that's all there is to Carnaval. To distribute condoms is to spend people's money in an inappropriate way. Not that we are against the use of condoms, but it has been proved scientifically that this is not a 100 percent safe method for avoiding HIV."

Renato Cavalhere, Master's vice-president for creation, knew his campaign would be controversial and would draw the ire of the Church, but decided that the problem was too serious for him to be worried with religious beliefs. "We cannot preach during Carnaval," he explained. "This would be throwing money away. We need to speak a language that everyone understands."

Even more controversial was another spot prepared by Lux Video from São Paulo, which attacked the Catholic Church directly. "If the Church took centuries to take responsibility for the Inquisition," the piece asked, "and decades to assume its responsibility for part of the Nazi crimes, how long will it need to admit that it is contributing to the spread of AIDS?" This work, however, was vetoed by the Health Ministry afraid that it would provoke a crisis between the Church and the government.

Brazil has 196,000 cases of AIDS, 146,472 among men and 49,544 among women. The disease seems to have gone full circle. After its initial impact in the gay community, spreading later to heterosexuals with many women infected by their husbands, it has come back to haunt younger homosexual men. These are gays who didn't lose friends to the disease and who have lowered their guard under the mistaken impression that the new medicine cocktails will spare them from certain and swift death. In 1998, 38 percent of those infected with AIDS were heterosexual, in 2000 this number jumped to 42.8 percent. The situation is worse among women. Between 1994 and 1998 there were nine times more new cases of AIDS among women than among men.

In the year 2000, 36 percent of the $301 million spent to buy these drugs distributed among 100,000 patients were used to purchase Efavirenz and Nelfinavir. The financial burden became so heavy for public health organizations in Brazil that the government threatened to break the patent of Merck and Roche, the laboratories that manufacture the medicine. Brazil expects to be able to produce these drugs on its own until the mid of the year.

With the real valued at half of it was a few years ago—then, one real was worth one dollar—the behavior of Brazilian tourists has changed, according to some observers of the overseas Brazilian tourist. New York and Miami, chosen mainly for their shopping potential, are giving way to more cultural and picturesque tours like the American Pacific Coast and the cities of Boston and New Orleans as well as European circuits. However, this hasn't prevented Brazilians going overseas from spending 13.6 percent more than in 1999. While a foreign visitor to Brazil spends an average of $244 per capital, Brazilians spend $385 (it was $339 in 1999).

According to ABAV (Associação Brasileira das Agências de Viagem—Brazilian Association of Travel Agencies) and Embratur (Empresa Brasileira de Turismo—the number of Brazilians traveling overseas also increased in the year 2000 with the trend continuing this year. While 9.11 million Brazilians went on abroad in 1999, spending $3.09 billion, the number increased to 9.29 million last year with $3.55 being spent in shops and tourist attractions. ABAV estimates that the number of Brazilian going overseas will increase by 10 percent this year.

In 1999, Brazil collected $1.63 billion from foreign travelers. In 2000 there was a slight increase to $1.66 billion. It means that foreign travelers in Brazil spent 53 percent less than Brazilians going to foreign locations. In an interview for O Globo, Antônio Carlos Silva, manager of Rio's major tour operator CVC, explained this Brazilian euphoria: "The Brazilian tourist is more confident today. He knows the dollar is more expensive, but he also thinks that the economy is much more predictable today. Overseas has become attractive again and it has been difficult to book flights."

Air companies are also benefiting from the current trend. Varig, the main Brazilian airline, for example, has been selling 80 percent of the seats for their international flights. During the last high season CVC saw a 70 percent increase in business. For Stella Barros, another tour operator, there were 65 percent more tickets sold in 2000 compared to the previous year. It is also expecting a 100-percent jump in its upcoming summer season business.

Funk and rap have contributed a lot recently to the national slang patrimony. Such new lingo is usually born in Rio's favelas, balls and bars and then spreads to the rest of the country through TV and music. Even Disney has contributed recently to the spread of argot peppering the Portuguese (Brazilian edition) version of its latest release, "The Emperor's New Groove", with slang.

In the Federal District, J. B. Serra e Gurgel, Universidade de Brasília's Communication professor, after publishing several editions of his slang dictionary Dicionário de Gíria, is now compiling all the material published in 120 books written in Brazil about the subject to organize a super slang dictionary containing more than 60,000 terms.

Serra, who is from Rio but has lived in Brasília since 1976, has been waging a one-man fight to preserve slang. He believes Rio continues to be the main breeding grounds for Brazilian slang. In an interview to São Paulo's daily Jornal da Tarde Serra made his point: "Slang is not something for outlaws. Slang is the second language of Brazilians and contributes to the renewal of the classic language, the official one."

Slang from funk

Chapa quente (literally hot plate)—crowded ball or uproar
Dar pressão (to apply pressure)—to have sex
Filé (beef tenderloin)—pretty man
Firmou (it got firm)—OK, it worked
Juvita—dumbbell
Pepita (nugget)—pretty woman
Pichadão—pretty man
Pit-bicha —strong and narcissistic male
Quebrar o barraco (to break the shack)—to get into trouble
Sufocador (choker)—disagreeable flirter
Tchutchuca—pretty woman

Slang from rap

Adoro (I adore)—no way
Gíria de Barbosa (Barbosa's slang)—repetition of the interlocutor's last words
Malfeitão—it didn't work
Murilo—gay
Nego bonito (pretty guy)—bad program
Romantão—wash out
Salgado, sinistro (sinister)——respectable person

For almost five centuries as a land of immigrants, Brazil has been exporting more people than receiving them from foreign places. According to the recent study Estimation of Migratory Balances, Liquid Rates of Migration and International Emigrants, 2,355,057 Brazilians left the country between 1986 and 1996 while only 169,303 immigrants entered Brazil. This represents a negative balance of 2,185,755 people.

If the exodus has helped in some way to alleviate the unemployment problem in the country and is allowing those overseas to send hard currency back to their homeland, the emigration of Brazilians is mainly a negative fact for the country as most emigrants are people with college degrees. To make matters worse, a high percentage are between the ages of 20 and 35.

"Brazil is losing population in significant numbers," says professor José Alberto Magno de Carvalho, director of Minas Gerais Federal University's Cedeplar (Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional—Center of Development and Regional Planning) "Today, we are clearly an emigrant county. The Brazilian who is emigrating has a better than average socio-economic level and schooling. Naturally, a poor person has no means to pay to illegally enter the United States. If we don't change course, in the medium and long run, Brazil will be investing in people to lose them soon after."

In an interview with Brasília's daily Correio Brasiliense, Carvalho, who got his PhD in London in the early '70s, talked about the difference between Brazilian college students from his time and today: "The students of my generation used to get their PhD and come back to Brazil because the universities were absorbing researchers and perspectives were promising. The education of a doctor costs $150,000 to the society. But today, this doctor prefers to stay in the United States and make up to $30,000 a month instead of returning to Brazil and earn a salary that at best might reach $3,000 a month.

Carvalho estimates that in ten years the population of Brazil will start to go down if the drop in birth rates continues. While at the end of the 60's a Brazilian woman would have an average of 6 children by age 50, today this number has fallen to 2.2 children. The country is very close to the 2.1 children by woman needed to keep the population stationary. "That means in 20 years those emigrated Brazilians will be missed even more," says Carvalho.

For sociologist Mary Garcia Castro, who coordinates the CNPD's (Comissão Nacional de População e Desenvolvimento—National Commission on Population and Development) International Migrations Work Group the age of the people emigrating is the most worrisome fact of the phenomenon:

"The loss of workers is still not high enough to destabilize the Brazilian economy, but it is a disturbing trend. What worries me the most is it is not the lack of educated people, but that of youngsters, who are to become Brazil's educated people."

She says she cannot understand why some Brazilian sectors are worried about the number of foreigners in Brazil: "Foreigners represent less than 5 percent of the total workforce. The best thing in a crisis of employment is to look for a scapegoat. We cannot close the country's door as the United States does by creating restrictive measures for the foreign workforce, while at the same time using aggressive recruiting to draw qualified workers."

Has São Paulo left the ICU? At the beginning of March it didn't seem as though the largest city in South America was ready to leave the Intensive Care Unit, as it new mayor, Marta Suplicy, had promised. On January 25, the anniversary of São Paulo, and five days short of a month of her inauguration, Suplicy had said that by the end of February, the city would be ready to leave ICU to occupy a room in the hospital. The mayor's closest aides agree today that their boss was too hasty in her assumption and that they need more time to correct a situation close to chaos left by the past two administrations.

For the men and women in the streets, São Paulo seems as abandoned as ever despite some emergency measures taken by City Hall, including the Belezura (Beautifying) Operation. Potholes, abandoned parks, lack of street lights and trash on the streets are the main complaints. Talking to daily O Estado de S. Paulo, bar owner Eduardo Zacharias, who lives and works in Penha, an east neighborhood, commented: "Nothing has changed. For six months we have been complaining about high wild grass and weeds in the area to no avail."

Residents from Granja Julieta, a wealthy enclave in the city's south side, whose security is done by private police, are also having this feeling of abandonment. Tired of waiting for a public solution, a group of residents from the upscale Jardins neighborhood raised money to install new lights on their street.

For the director of Ilume (Departamento de Iluminação Pública—Department of Public Lighting), Newton José Guaraldo, the near future is not very promising in his sector. He acknowledges that 4 percent of the 530,000 lights that São Paulo maintains are not working right now. In some instances the service isn't being done because the contractor in charge of the work hasn't been paid regularly. Some of them haven't been paid since October of last year.

Potholes lead in the number of complaints. In some areas the problem has dragged for so long that the holes have celebrated their first anniversary without a solution. In the west side neighborhood of Alto da Lapa all the administration could do to avoid accidents was to install a wood panel around a big hole. Even this hasn't prevented cars from falling into the hole during the night.

Every Secretary is dealing with a lack of resources. According to Finance Secretary's chief of cabinet, Fernando Haddad, his department will be the last to leave "intense therapy". "We are in the nervous center of the system and were able to disarm the time bombs left by the past administration in order to avoid a collapse of services." The Finance Secretary has already cut personnel and took other money saving measures to deal with the crisis, but Haddad believes that there will be no solution to the problem before the country starts to grow again, allowing an influx of taxes to city hall.

Matters in the social sector aren't better either. Social Assistance secretary, Evilásio Farias, has complained about the slowness of the public machine and believes that nothing that he is doing now—backstage work as he calls it—will show before July. Eduardo Jorge, the Health secretary, is not more upbeat than his colleague and says, "It's impossible to catch up in two months following eight years of misgovernment."

Patients have complained about the lack of personnel and medicines in public clinics. Close to 25 percent of the drugs normally dispensed by the municipality are out of stock. In some cases people have to wait three weeks or more to get an appointment with a doctor.

For Supply secretary, Jilmar Tatto, his department has already done something since "the patient is eating better". He is referring to the more balanced diet that children now are receiving at school. But he also has complaints about the lack of staff, which should be alleviated when a new decree will allow for parents and other members of the community to work as volunteers in the schools' kitchens." Things will get better in the second semester, he promises.

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