Candies to go!

If you see this hanging in a cheap bar or in a cafe place..  it is just packed honey, "dulce de leche" or brigadeiro. You buy it by unit, not for meter as you can imagine. The most commom is the one with honey. Personally, I like the colours.

You make a small hole in one of the corners and suck the liquid candie of your choice.

What is a X9?

Sometimes portuguese get difficult even for me... I went to Tropa de Elite 2 and some lines I just could not understand. No problem, they are from Rio... but when my boyfriend told me: X9! I got really puzzled, how policial and prision languages are now in normal conversation. Portuguese as any language is alive...
I am really glad Cassio spent his childhood and teenager years in one of most dangerous areas in Sao Paulo... he is really good in all this translation.

X9 is the one who tells a secret in some favor, like Judah in the Bible.

What is Tacaca?

It is a special soup, typical from Amazon region, so don't expect to find this on Sao Paulo. It is made with manioc stark, jambu leaves (cousin of coca leaves) and dry shrimps. You should try this from streets... it is funnier. Not sure I liked it, but I would have another one in my next time in North of Brazil.

Tacaca from Manaus served in a natural bowl and a stick.

Shopping Local - Havaianas

After read a book called ECO-CHIC, my frieds assumed a new problem to give me presents. The conditions and how sustaintable the products are made. Getting a top made in Bangladeish became a ethical dillema for me. I had decision for brazilian products, most of times. It is good for the local economy, it is good for brazilian kids... or a give parents a job, if I gave a kid a job; the odds of it appears in media here are bigger, if it just happens in Asia. The ecological certifications are becomming less rare around here. So shopping local...

HAVAIANAS off course!

A Brazilian Fashion Icon

Havaina is a flip-flop created in 1962 inspired in japanese sandals called Zori, made in rice straw and cotton. Alpargatas, the factory of Havaianas use a soft rubber. If I say, I love them! Not true... I have one pink and with a anabella hell, it hurts my feet in a few places, althought most of my no brazilian friends love them and feels confortable.
One important tip, we don't use havaiana in any place... should be in a place you would use a more causal. It is changing... I don't care in wearing mine in my fancy french school when I go with a dress, but people will look. Just to try not use them with jeans in a bussiness meeting as an european friend did.. he will be mocked for ever.

Ahhh, by the way amazing to buy as a souvenir... easy to carry!

References and shopping (!):
http://www.loja.havaianas.com.br/

How to make a brazilian angry?

1- Asking if our capital is Buenos Aire. Just to reasure... it is not. It's Brasília.

2- Speak Spanish with us as it was our born language... it is not. It is Portuguese.

If  you both combine... and this "brazilian" not even care to correct you... it is a fake one.

Moviment Chola is beautiful!

I spent some time in my neighbors land, Chile, Bolivie and Peru, in the last weeks...Not my first time there, but I could realise an onipresence "caracter" - the Latin America woman. I say caracter in a good way, because their own female details made them almost designed by a Vargas Llosa or Garcia Marquez novel.

Normally, we call this woman chola and there is a special proud in being one. 
Chola has a peculiar way of dress, complete different for a occidental woman. I didn´t go deeper in the real origins, but I am more interest in what is going nowdays in this generation who still dressing as they grandmothers and feelling proud of it. For a moment, I considered it was just for tourists, but it happens in small towns without a turistic importance.


Then, It come to other subject the real importance of the woman in latin america society. Cholas carry the baby in the back while she is working as a seller, a tourist guide, a worker in the coca planations and at home. They do this not because all the modern psycologic books say it is good for a mother being close to a child. They do this because they need to do... there is no other option.


Talking about beauty, ocidental normal patterns tell you should be thin, blond and with big breasts. If you really beliave on this like most of brazilian girls you may get frustrated or spend all your life to matching impossilbe esthetical criteria because it is just genetically, cultural or enviromental. Can you imagine a chola working out a gym or having a facial peeling?

So, I could see all these amazing woman working hard and wearing this colourful strange outfit, with a special attention for the size of the hips, not the breast! Just have a message for me... we are latin american woman and we need respect. The beauty patterns of our brazilian neighbors should be revisited!
We are not barbie's dolls!

This is the start of Chola is beautiful moviment!
Enjoy it!

Sorry, english mistake... too much langages working at the same time.

Fake Cognates = Fake Friends - Spanish/Portuguese

This is a classic mistake for who speaks "Portunhol" - Portuguese and Spanish (Espanhol).

Embaraçada in Portuguese is ashamed (just for female).
Estou embaraçada!
I'm ashamed.

Embarazada in Spanish is pregnant.
Estoy embarazada!
I'm pregnant!

Elite Squad 2 - the movie and social influences.

Elite Squad 1 was a huge sucess  in 2008. A brazilian Golden Bear in Berlin! A lot of brazilian fans! Lines from the movie got in daily life. I loved this film. Loved... in past. Now, we have Elite Squad 2, today at the theater!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsZP9ZX3fsI

After my own most personal violent experience, a kidnapping at 31st of December of 2009. I change myself and my view about violence and about Elite Squad.I'll watch this movie for sure... My concern is the simplicist view that violence can be understood, as it happened with Elite Squad1. Violence was treated with more violence and there is a happy end...!

In real life,  an old policial officer chief with a cerebral hematoma told me in his hospital bed, the secrets to reduce violence in Brazil would be: Education, Health and Safety... just safety by killing "the bad guys", it is a videogame illusion. More bad guys will appear if you don´t fix the other parts of the chain... and they will take your girlfriend or they will shout you in your face.

Violence is an important subject seen for most of people just in the which way is the best for protect themselves... if this way of protection is not well worked, the fear will grow and we will be prisioners.

Dedicated to Cassio...for making me shut up in the police station when I was screamming: "Now, who will give me my sense of freedom back again?"

Brazil and Argentina hate each other?

Not true!

Carol´s Pic at Havanna Cafe - Sao Paulo

Is the same hate between French and Germans? Well... there is Jules et Jim by François Truffaut. The same way we can match this amazin "dulce de leche" with nice brazilian espresso coffee.

It may have some historical conflicts and mainly the soccer conflicts. The brazilians who may say this just never visit our neighbors or not had enough "dulce de leche".

What is the most common bread in Brazil?

French Bread from Pannetaria Buena Pasta - Sao Paulo/Brazil

It´s the french bread! Well... at least, we call it "pão francês" and it is not even close to a croissant! It´s made with white flour and it have a crunch golden outside croast and have a fluffy white inside. Usually, you don´t make at home, but buy it daily at the bakery. I prefer when there almost left the bakery oven, still a bit warm..and just with a bit of butter. Why they call french bread? Is that on France? I really don´t know...

How to make a brazilian typical sandwich?



Mortadela's Sandwich from Hoccas in Sao Paulo



It´s quite easy just take a big bunch of mortadela, tiny sliced, grilled the all piece for a sandwich on a hot pan with oil. Serve in white bread with a crunch croast - we call it "pao frances" (french bread).

Even the question is what is mortadela?

Mortadella is a large italian sausage or  made of finely hashed/ground heat-cured pork sausage which incorporates at least 15% small cubes of pork fat (principally the hard fat from the neck of the pig).- From Wikipedia