Living in Brazil: Reasons to be Cheerful

Corruption, Brazil, Lavo Jato, Good times

Yesterday, I wrote about some of the troubling changes taking place here in Brazil. Today, it’s Good Friday, so I thought I’d focus on some of the good things that are happening. While it is certainly true that there are reasons to be fearful, I am of the opinion that there are even more reasons to be cheerful and that, in a few years, things might just work out all right.

It had to happen

Brazilian politics has been in a terrible state for a long time now. Despite the introduction of ‘ficha limpa’ (‘clean record’), which sought to allow only people with no criminal past being able to stand for election, there has been no wholesale change. Indeed, as I quoted yesterday, up to 60% of politicians are currently being investigated for some sort of criminal action.

The system has to change, and the only way it would be changed is from the outside. Perhaps it has taken so many corruption scandals and so much indignation, coupled with an economic recession, public health scares and lingering resentment over the World Cup and Olympics for Brazil to reach a point of no return. If it doesn’t change now, it never will.

An interesting development from one of the protests a couple of weeks ago was when a couple of opposition politicians tried to join the protest and were told in no uncertain terms that they were not welcome, that they were as much a part of the problem as the government. In the past, I have said that the only people worse than the government are those trying to replace them, if other people realise this, then maybe there is hope yet.

In a further, encouraging, development, Wednesday saw the release of a document from Odebrecht, a huge construction company that has just agreed to provide evidence on behalf of the state. This document included a list of the politicians they had bribed and included names from all across the political spectrum. My hope is that this helps to reinforce the idea that it is the system which is corrupt, that the system corrupts all those it comes into contact with and it is this system that needs reforming, not the individuals who happen to be in power at the moment.

Strong Institutions

While there are arguments to be had over the limits of judicial power, the fact that the judiciary is able to take a stand is encouraging. The JP were given increased powers, resources and autonomy early on in Dilma’s first term, and it is exactly these powers that are being used against her and the previous regime. A strong judiciary, as well as a free press, access to social media and strong social movements should help keep future presidents in check as well as preventing a military takeover.

The end of impunity?

Brazil, prison, end of impunity, protests

Influential people might just end up in a place like this

People are going to jail. This might not seem such a big deal in other countries, but here in Brazil rich, influential people have, until now, rarely ended up behind bars. So far, it has been businessmen, but I am fairly certain that in the not-too-distant future some bug name politicians are also going to find themselves doing porridge.

This is something to applaud. Future politicians and businesspeople are going to have to think twice before they engage in bribes again, or at least make sure there is no evidence of what they are doing so they can’t be caught.

Political discussions

I was in a queue in a supermarket last week for an awfully long time. This is not news as supermarkets are notorious for taking an age to take you money. The interesting thing on this occasion, though, was as I finally got to the checkout the cashiers were all talking amongst themselves about politics. I heard jokes about Lula, updates on what Dilma had just said and looks of derision about Cunha.

When I was out last Friday night, it seemed that no bar room chat could go more than 15 minutes without it coming back to politics.

Most of my classes have, at some point in the last week, been dominated by politics. I haven’t been the one to bring up the subject for fear of alienating some of my students, but they have all listened to what I had to say and either agreed or respectfully offered a different opinion.

For me, to hear politics being discussed by so many people in so many different contexts can only be encouraging and long may it continue.

A lack of violence

While there have been isolated outbreaks of violence, there hasn’t been any large-scale violence at all. This reminds me of the way in which Brazil made its transition to democracy from military dictatorship in that there was relatively little violence and bloodshed, especially compared to other countries in Latin America.

Weak Military

There have been a number of calls for the military to step in a take power. I’m not sure f these calls are just from a vocal minority or are just being publicised by the government to highlight the threat of a coup. I am not a Brazilian military expert, by any means, but from what I have been told, the military has been so underfunded over the last 20 years that they are now pretty much incapable of staging a coup, never mind running a country that would then be in all kinds of trouble. There is also no appetite from other countries to support a military coup (yes, I’m looking at you USA).

On the whole, taking yesterday’s reasons to be fearful and today’s reasons to be cheerful into consideration, I am genuinely optimistic about the future path of Brazil. There are potential roadblocks and dead ends that we could take, however, it couldn’t continue as it has been over the last few years. As this video makes clear, Brazil’s government is falling aprt…and it’s good news?

Living in Brazil: Reasons to be fearful

Reasons to be fearful

It isn’t much fun being in Brazil at the moment. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a lot going on in Brazil right now that would be enough to make a good man turn bad: Zika virus, recession, crap football team, an Olympics nobody really cares about…

On top of all this, we have the lava jato (car wash) corruption scandal. Now, after living in Brazil for a while, you start to become a bit inured to corruption scandals as they seem come around as regular as a . But this one has turned out to be a bid different. It’s been a corruption scandal with bells on.

It is a long story and, if you would like to know more about the details, you could start with a good infographic showing the participants from the New York Times, read a basic background description from The Guardian, or have a laugh with John Oliver.

Living here with the drip drip, and occasional gush, of stories surrounding the scandal, it can at times seem a bit of a scary place. A lot of the time, these fears are of what might happen based on what we have already seen:

The Numbers

Corrutpion, Brazil, Lavo Jato, Car wash, Scandal

Corrupt Legislation by Vedder Highsmith

As well as quite a few businessmen either in prison or facing charges, there are now about 50 of these politicians now under investigation.

And that is just one scandal. All in all, according to The New York Times, 60% of are accused of various crimes from electoral fraud to murder.

The Lavo Jato enquiry has found that some $3.5bn has been involved in various kick backs and bribes. Who knows how much more has been missed or is involved in other schemes.

These are just some of the numbers involved and are truly shocking and force people to think that all the politicians are only in it for themselves and there is nothing that can be done.

Update: While writing this, a document has been released from Odebrecht, a construction company heavily implicated in the scandal which has just done a deal to allow its executives to turn state witness. This document lists the politicians who they have bribed in the past, so this number of 50 is already out of date and is now much higher.

The Protests

There has always been a certain amount of hatred of the governing PT (Workers’ Party) and these corruption scandals have given everyone with an axe to grind the perfect reason to protest. And protest they have, with millions coming on to the streets to call for the impeachment of President Dilma, the arrest of former president Lula and for the whole corrupt gang of the PT to be thrown in prison.

The rhetoric from the anti-government quarter has been strident, but recently it has been matched by pr0-government supporters. Red and black are shouting at yellow and nobody is listening. And the protests look as if they are going to continue, be even more vocal and even more polarised.

The Colours

Yellow has become the colour of choice of the protestors angry at the current government. Yellow is, of course, in the national flag and is the colour of the national football team. Many of te street protests of have been a sea of yellow with original Nike football shirts very prominent.

Corruption, protests, Brazil, car wash, scandal lavo jato

Anti-government protests in Sao Paulo (Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil)

Before a recent protest there were posts on Facebook that people should avoid wearing red, as this is the colour of PT and the left, and they should also avoid black as this is the colour of the anarchists or the Black Block.

There were some reports of people being attacked by protestors because they were wearing the wrong colours, although the vast majority of people have been peaceful.

The Violence

So far, there have been only sporadic incidents of violence at the protests. There are many people predicting that levels of violence will increase if Lula is charged or if Dilma is impeached. Who knows what will happen? It is, however, a genuine fear that the rhetoric used by both sides is only going to increase the propensity for serious violence further down the road.

The Judiciary

Sergio Moro is the judge who has taken the lead in prosecuting those involved in the lavo jato case. Depending on your point of view, he is either the caped crusader coming to save Brazil in its hour of need, or an example of how judges are using their power to corrupt the political system and engineer a coup.

The Military

And in the background there is the looming shadow of the military. It is not too long since we had a military regime here and the genuine fear from a lot of people is that we might be heading back that way. This is not helped by photos of people holding banner at protests calling for a military to kick out the corrupt politicians. Of course, there was never any corruption under the military government at all. Or at least, we never heard about it.

It all seems pretty bleak at the moment. But of course there are two sides to every story, so tomorrow I’ll be looking at some reasons to be cheerful.

A Bilingual Child: Little Daddy

Brazil may be a huge country, but Brazilians love making everyone and everything in it as small as possible. One thing I noticed early on when learning Portuguese was the prevalence of the suffix –inho or –inha. They use it on the end of words to form the diminutive, and they use it all the time.

This means that a ‘coffee’ (café) becomes ‘cafezinho’, ‘grande’ (big) can be ‘a little bit big’ (grandinho), and ‘never’ (nunca) can be ‘never, ever’ when it is used as ‘nuncinha‘.

Even the word little itself ‘pequeno’ can be made even littler by saying ‘pequeninho’.

However, a small t-shirt (camisa) is not a camisnha because camisinha means condom.

This little suffix be used to mean something is actually small but not exclusively so. It can also be used to show familiarity, friendliness or that something is just so damned cute.

The basic rule is that you add –inho to masculine words and –inha to feminine words. However, if the word ends in the letter ‘z’, or vowel other than ‘a’ or ‘or’ then we have wither –zinho or –zinha, depending on the gender of the word.

English uses the diminutive a lot less than Portuguese. Footballers and children are fond of adding a ‘y’ to the end of names to sound familiar, so that you will hear them referring to their teammates as ‘Scholesy’ and ‘Giggsy’. In terms of more formal English, we have imported the suffix -ette from French so that we get words like ‘kitchenette’ and ‘cigarette’.

There are also different varieties of English around the world that have their own diminutive forms, like my dad shows his Irish roots by adding -een to the end of various words, for example, ‘Would you like a cuppeen of tea?’ is a common expression in our house.

In general, though, we don’t have a common diminutive form, and when we do use it we are nothing like as proficient as Portuguese speakers for employing it.

An advert for Coke in Ecuador makes fun of the Brazilian predilection for diminutives

Diminutives in Action

Mr T has picked up on this in his Portuguese and is enjoying playing with words and liberally adding –inho to them. He was begging me to let him watch Batman the other day and, because we have a rule that he can only watch at night the answer was no. But he is nothing if not persistent and so asked if we could watch Batmanzinho, or just a little batman.

Mr T couldn’t tell you the rule about when to say –inho or –zinho, but he has shown us that he is aware of it. He did this when playing with the English word ‘daddy’. First of all he called me ‘daddyinho’, but he knew this was wrong almost as soon as it came out of his mouth. A few seconds later he repeated himself, but this time said ‘daddyzinho’.

I liked this because it shows he is being creative with his language, playing with it to get new words and meanings. He also did it with a look on his face to suggest he knew what he was doing was a joke at my expense and that he also knew that he shouldn’t really be doing this in English.

The only downside is that I am little daddy and not big daddy. But at least my name isn’t Shirley.

Living in Brazil: Lovers’ Day

Here in Brazil, June 12th is the equivalent of February 14th in the UK. Back home we have St. Valentine’s Day where everybody in a relationship is guilted into spending a fair whack of their money on flowers, chocolates cards and dinner. A couple of the details in Brazil are different (there is no culture of giving cards for any reason) but the general result of spending far too much money is basically the same. And instead of naming the day after a saint, it is simply call Dia dos Namorados (Lovers’ Day).

My wife and I made a deal a long time ago that we are in the UK we would only celebrate the Brazilian Lovers’ Day in June, and when we were in Brazil we would only celebrate the British Valentine’s Day in February. This has the very pleasant result of easily getting a table in a restaurant and not getting quite so fleeced with expensive and tacky chocolates.

This year, though, is going to be different. This year I have decided to buy my wife some smelly stuff from the chain of shops called Boticário.

I have not discovered some deeply hidden romantic side, nor have I become the last of the big spenders. Instead, I am responding to an advert that the company has been running here in Brazil and has caused quite a stir.

I usually go out of my way to try to not respond to adverts. I know that I probably do, subconsciously, but when I am aware of an advert trying to fool me into buying something my stubborn streak shows up and refuses to let me. But this advert is different.

It’s a 30-second advert, and the first 15 seconds are your standard glossy fare that you might exect from a perfume shop. We see a various people preparing for a date with a wrapped bottle of what we assume to be perfume carefully placed in the shot. The way the opening scene is edited seems to pair up each couple so that they are all heterosexual couples of similar ages and backgrounds.

But then in the last 15 seconds, we see that we have been fooled, that our expectations have been played upon, because we have a young lesbian couple, a middle-aged gay couple and the expected heterosexual couple. We see hugs, which is nothing unusual here in Brazil no matter what the sex of the individuals might be, but there is also at least one sultry look to leave th viewer in no doubt as to the intentions of those involved.

I must admit I was shocked to see such an advert here in Brazil. While great advances have been made by the LGBT community, there is still a lot of resistance to them in society. This is partly down to the power and wealth of the evangelical churches here who are not afraid to throw their considerable resources behind anything that might smack of letting people do what they want in their own bedrooms. As well as this, there is the old-fashioned macho culture and fear of homosexuality that still hasn’t disappeared.

I was shocked, then, because this is a potentially risky message from Boticário. Yes, they will make money from people who are part of the LGBT community and people like myself who support a society free from all forms of discrimination. But they also run the risk of being denounced from the pulpits and soapboxes by some very loud and opinionated preachers and politicians.

So that is why I am going to buy my wife something for this Lovers’ Day, and it is going to be some perfume from Boticário, to support this message and to show that there is a return for companies that interested in doing what is right no matter what their risks might be.

And who knows, maybe next year they’ll have somebody in their adverts who isn’t completely white.

Image Credits

Valentines Chocolates by Stewart Butterfield – CC BY 2.0

Heart Bokeh 2 by Lee Ann L. – CC BY-NC 2.0

Living in Curitiba: The Goldilocks City

The people from Curitiba, Curitibanos, are like most people I have met in that they love to complain about the weather. They are fond of lamenting the fact that there can be 4 seasons in each day because you must have clothes to cater for each of the seasons. In the summer, half of the locals continually moan about the insufferable heat, and in the winter the other half just bang on about how cold they are.

The last couple of weeks have seen an upswing in these grumblings as the weather has changed from a pleasant Indian summer into a wet and cold autumn. Not that I am complaining, though.

The Goldilocks City

I have written before about how the bi-polar weather here in Curitiba can be a problem when you have small kids, and this is mainly because the infrastructure in homes means it is often colder indoors than it is outdoors.

However, as far as the actual weather is concerned, I have come to the conclusion that Curitiba is blessed with what must be close to being the best weather in the world.

You see, when it’s hot it is rarely too hot. I have lived in both Rio de Janeiro and Taipei and in both of those cities it can regularly hit 40, and then stay there for months. In Curitiba if it gets to 35 it is unusual. As well as needing less air conditioning, this has the advantage of keeping dengue away (for now).

And when it is cold, it is rarely too cold. It can get down to zero for a few days, but never the -20 with snow from November to Easter that I experienced when I lived in Poland for a year. The advantage of this is that you can wear something other than shorts every day of the week.

And ok, it can be grey and overcast a lot. But not like London. I spent one winter in London when I didn’t see the sun for about 4 months. This was because I went to work on the underground in the morning and when I came home it was already dark. On the weekends it was either wet, cloudy or I was in bed recovering from a particularly hard night.

When it is cloudy in London, it can be cloudy for months on end. When it is hot in Rio, or freezing in Poland, it will be like that for a long time. In Curitiba, in the midst of a freezing and wet winter, we can have the odd beautiful, warm day. And when it’s been over 30 for a couple of weeks there is a good chance that the next few days will be wet and only in the 20’s.

We don’t get hurricanes or twisters. We don’t have earthquakes or volcanoes. We live far enough away from the sea, and high enough up the mountains to not be worried about Tsunamis or the rising seas due to global warming.

We get the odd storm which can result in some floods and sometimes a landslide, but nothing like other parts of Brazil. The storms we get are proper storms with rain lashing down, bolts of lightning and claps of thunder. Powerful, invigorating and amazing.

And so Curitiba is the Goldilocks city because it is never too hot and never too cold. In fact, it is usually just about right.

Images

Goldilocks by Vlolscraper CC BY-NC 2.0

Old, modern and organic in Curitiba by Radamés Manasso CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Living in Curitiba: Garden Plans

Finally, after what seems an interminable wait, we are in our new house. Despite living in Brazil, the house we have bought could have been transplanted from a typical British terrace in any city in the UK. The first thing that practically everyone who has visited has said is that it feels like a very English house. Some people think it was my idea to buy this place, but it wasn’t; when my wife first saw it she fell in love with the place and had to convince me to make an offer.

When looking for a new place to live we looked at a lot of places, both flats and houses. We were siding towards a couple of apartments because most houses we saw used up all of the space with the house and left nothing for a garden. It seems to be very common for houses in Curitiba to take up all the land with the building and leave nothing for nature. We asked ourselves what would be the point of having a house if you couldn’t have a garden. You would get all of the downsides of a house without many of the positives of having an apartment.

This house, though, has two gardens: one at the front and a slightly larger one at the back. I say gardens, but in Britain they would probably be called ‘yards’ as they are pretty small.

We have small gardens, but I have big plans.

It’s only grass at the moment, but give me time

I want to grow some vegetables and herbs in the garden. The herbs will probably be in their own plant pots and placed on window sills, the tops of walls and even bolted onto the sides of walls. I am in negotiations with my wife to taking over a part of the front garden to plant some vegetables like lettuce, leeks, carrots and what not.

I want to do this because I like the idea of cooking food that I have grown nd knowing it is all 100% organic. I also like the idea of getting Mr T to help me and show him where food comes from and engage him in how plants grow. I am under no illusions as I know there is a fairly good chance he won’t be interested at all, but at least I will have given him the opportunity.

My wife wants the garden to look nice. She wants flowers and colour and smells and all that stuff. I have no problem with this, but as space is limited we are going to have to think very carefully about how we manage both objectives.

One possibility that we have found so far involves using old pallets for a vertical garden.

There are also videos on youtube about using old plastic bottles to create vertical gardens.

What my wife and I do agree on is finding plants that naturally repel certain insects, like mosquitoes and other things that bite. I get nasty reactions to certain types of insect bite, and it looks like my son has inherited that particular trait from me as well. We’ve been told that Marigolds are good and Citronella are good for this, as is Catnip but I am not sure how easy it is to find Catnip here in Curitiba. I’d love to grow some Catnip just for the idea of growing drugs for cats, but we’ll have to see.

No room for a swimming pool.

I mentioned earlier that one of the reasons to plant stuff is to teach my son about the birds and the bees, so to speak. He, of course, gets a lot of input into what we will end up growing and so far the one thing he wants is sunflowers. I am very happy to plant these, but we will have to wait a few months as winter is coming.

What he really wants is a swimming pool. I think a paddling pool might have to suffice.

Anyway, those are our tentative plans at the moment. We are all really looking forwards to getting our garden going and I suppose ony time will tell if our plans come to fruition or not.

If anybody has any tips, links or general advice for how to make the most of limited space I would really appreciate any comments you might want to leave below.

World Cup 2014: Brazil Is Still Here

Brazil fans after losing to Germany 7-1 in the World Cup

After the game

Shame! Embarrassment! Humiliation! Scandal! Ignominy!

Words such as these were bandied about on Tuesday evening. There were tears from more than one person. A few arguments broke out. Some wondered out loud if they would be able to go to work the next day. Others swore the would never leave Brazil again so they wouldn’t have to face the rest of the world.

A couple of people predicted trouble. There were going to be riots. The country was going to rise up. Everything would stop working. The world was going to end.

It is true that a few people didn’t make it in to work the following day, but that was more down to the effects off too much bad beer than feelings of shame. Apart from a few isolated incidents, there wasn’t much trouble, the country has risen up (much to the chagrin of people who should know better) and the world hasn’t ended.

Most Brazilians I know have reacted to the 7-1 loss to Germany in the World Cup semi-final just as I would have predicted, if ever I though such a result were possible. They have shouted at the TV, cursed Galvão (if they still watch him), cried a bit, opened a beer, cracked a few self-deprecating jokes and got on with it.

One very interesting thing for me was the speed with which jokes and memes hit the internet. Midway through the 2nd half I was seeing some great stuff on Facebook, and most of it was by Brazilians. This shouldn’t have been too surprising Brazil is a very connected country, but the speed with which they accepted the inevitable and then started joking about it was impressive.

In newspapers and on TV there is talk of conspiracies and recriminations in the Senate. But most people I have met have talked about it a bit, and then got on with whatever it is they needed to do.

There does seem to be a bit of a divorce between what the media are talking about and what Brazilians I know are talking about. This was evident right from the start of the World Cup. Hardly anybody I spoke to really expected Brazil to win. There was hope, but no expectation. There was a realisation that this team was far from a vintage one and that there were other stronger teams in the world. A few suggested that simply by being at home they would have an advantage that might see them win, but this was never going to be anything to build all your hopes on.

And so now most eyes are turned to the final on Sunday. Nobody really cares about Saturday’s 3rd/4th place play-off, and most people seem to think it is a waste of time and should never be played. The only thing that could really upset people now is if Argentina win in Rio de Janeiro, but even that, I think, wouldn’t be the end of the world.

This blog piece is a part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs series on World Cup for Kids. If you would like to follow the World Cup from the point of view of kids around the world then please go and check out the site. There are bloggers from all of the competing countries as well as articles about Brasil and how to get kids interested in sport.

World Cup 2014: Brazil, Football and Music.

A football and a guitar: Brazilian songs about football

Footy and Music by agthom – CC BY-NC-2.0

Right back at the beginning of the Word Cup, and the start of my series of posts for MKB World Cup for Kids, I asked people what Brazil was famous for, with the idea that I could write some posts based on these ideas.

One person, on Facebook I think, rightfully mentioned that Brazil is famous for samba but that there is also a lot of other music that Brazil doesn’t get recognition for. There are great jazz musicians, heavy metal artists, funk singers and DJs that all come from Brazil. There are also a lot of crap sertanejo, pagode and axé musicians around, but then every country has its fair share of shame in the music stakes.

But as this is the World Cup I thought I’d share some of the music from Brazil about, or inspired by football. I don’t make any claim to all of them being on my playlist, but I have culled a lot of songs that I think are awful. If you would like to find out about more songs from Brazilian artists about football you can do a Google search for musica brasileiro futebol.

Jorge Ben Jor – Fio Maravilha

This song is about a footballer whose nickname was Fio Maravilha. It tells the story of a friendly game in which he was brought onto the pitch in the 33rd minute and scored ‘the goal of an angel’. Due to legal problem between the singer and the player you’ll often see the song called Filho Maravilha, which would be translated as ‘Wonderful Son’. This particular version also features the brilliant Gilberto Gil.

Skank – É Um Partido do Futebol (It’s a Football Match)

Skank are a rock/reggae/indie band that started in the early 1990’s. Despite being very successful in Brazil they haven’t really sought international recognition, which surely would have been theirs if they had tried.

Elis Regina – Aqui É O Pais do Futebol (The Football Country Is Here)

I love Elis! I think she has to be one of my top two favourite Brazilian musicians. She sang some great political songs during the dictatorship and managed to get away with it. I like to think this was because of her voice, but it was probably because the authorities were too stupid to figure out what she was actually singing about. This isn’t one of her best, but it’s still pretty good.

Pixinguinha – Um a Zero (One Nil)

Pixinguinha was one of the first popular Brazilian musicians. He started playing in bands and recording songs when he was still a teenager in the early 20th century in Lapa, Rio de Janeiro. He is credited with bringing choro to the Brazilian masses as well as being around for the birth of samba.

Chico Buarque – O Futebol (Football)

Along with Elis Regina, Chico Buarque is probably my other favourite Brazilian musician. If you have never heard of him, them shame on you. For this particular song I chose a video with images of Garrincha, the Brazilian footballer who was probably better than Pele, and definitely loved more than the Viagra-selling-wannabe-politician.

Edu Krieger – Desculpe, Neymar (Sorry, Neymar)

No, this isn~t a lament for Brazil’s star player breaking his back. Instead, this song is a letter to Neymar telling him that the author will not be supporting Brazil at this World Cup because of the corruption, huge budgets and the problems facing Brazilian society.

Bonus track – Atlético’s Fanáticos drummers

Practically every team in Brazil has its band of drummers and my team, Atlético Paranaense, is no different. The organised supporters group for Atlético is called The Fanáticos, and they have come in for some criticism for links to hooligans and crime. They have a decent set of drummers, though.

I have left loads of songs off this list. If you know of any in particular that you think are better than the ones I have mentioned, please just leave a comment below.

MKB One World Futbol World Cup Giveaway

Football Giveaway

As a kid, I played football with anything: stones, empty drinks cans, rolled up socks, space-hoppers and cricket balls. I was football crazy, so I didn’t really care how much a cricket ball would hurt my foot, I just wanted to kick it.

While kids will kick anything in an effort to play the beautiful game, there is nothing better than playing with a real football. The problem is, though, that they can be very expensive and tend to deflate very quickly when you shank one into next door’s window.

That hissing sound of air escaping from a ball has to be one of the nightmare sounds from my childhood.

That’s why I am so excited to support One World Futbol in their mission to bring the healing power of play to youth worldwide through their nearly indestructible soccer/football. The One World Futbol never needs a pump and never goes flat—even when punctured multiple times—due to its ingenious technology. But what we truly love about their model is for every ball purchased, they donate one to organizations working with youth in disadvantaged communities worldwide.

Our Giveaway

Follow along by using the hash tag #MKBWorldCup!

We have a special giveaway planned during the World Cup with Multicultural Kid Blogs and One World Futbol. It’s unlike a usual giveaway as this time you, our readers, are using your collective power to vote to give the ball away to a community in need! We need your help so we can donate one of the One World Futbols (generously supplied by One World Futbol) to the Richard Swanson – Breakaway Brazil campaign. Richard Swanson had a dream of dribbling a football all the way from Seattle in the USA to Brazil for the World Cup, but unfortunately his dream was cut short when he was hit and killed in Oregon just two weeks into his journey.

But here’s the thing–there are 9 blogs participating in this contest, and One World Futbol will donate balls to the three blogs that get the most shares on their posts. So we need your help–please SHARE this post on Twitter, Facebook, G+ and Pinterest and contribute your power, your vote to help us donate this One World Futbol. Each share make directly from this post is tallied as a vote. And whoever get the most votes, donates the ball! Let’s show how strong our voices are with our votes.

We have until midnight ET on Sunday, July 13, to get as many shares as we can on this post. (The tally will be made based on the number on the social share buttons at the end of this post). So let’s start now!

Feel free to use #MKBWorldCup when you share!

And don’t forget to visit Multicultural Kid Blogs to help them “unlock” an additional two One World Futbols to donate!

One World Futbol

One World Futbol Project is a B-corporation based in Berkeley, CA and was founded by Tim Jahnigen, the inventor of the One World Futbol. One World Futbol was inspired by refugee youth in Darfur, who had such indestructible spirits – and love for football! – despite their hardships. Tim Jahnigen wanted to give them something more, so he invented a soccer ball that would never need a pump and would never go flat, even when punctured multiple times. One World Futbol Project and its virtually indestructible ball have now reached 160 countries and continue to bring the healing power of play to youth worldwide. The Buy One Donate One model makes it easy for consumers to donate these amazing One World Futbols to needy communities.
Here is more on their work in one community in my city of Curitiba in Brazil:

Participating Blogs

The following member blogs are participating in this contest. Visit them to see which organizations they have chosen. Remember, sharing is caring! The 3 blogs with the most social shares (as shown on the share counters on their blog posts) will get to donate a football to the qualified organization they have chosen!

Our Whole Village
Expat Life with a Double Buggy
Entre Compras y El Hogar
Head of the Heard
InCultureParent
MommyMaestra
La Cité des Vents
Trilingual Mama
All Done Monkey

Help “unlock” an additional two One World Futbols at Multicultural Kid Blogs!

See all of the posts in the World Cup for Kids project, plus follow our World Cup for Kids board on Pinterest, and join the conversation on Facebook and Google Plus!

World Cup 2014: Brazil’s Hands on Shoulders

Brazilian football team walks onto the pitch with hands on shoulders

Blind leading the blind?

When I first moved to Brazil there were many sights and sounds that were new, funny or just plain downright weird. There were a number of times when I was left open-mouthed when I saw something for the first time, like the Oil Man of Curitiba or 80-year-old men walking around town in just their Speedos.

The Blind Leading the Blind

One of the things that sticks in my mind was the time I saw a row or 4 or 5 blind people crossing the road. The first person was walking with a white cane with the next person following him with his hand on the lead man’s shoulder. The third person, in turn, had his hand on the second person’s shoulder, and so on.

Obviously I had heard the expression ‘the blind leading the blind’, but I thought it was just an clever turn of phrase. But here it was, in Curitiba, Brazil, an actual reality.

Brazil Football Team’s New Ritual

When Brazil walks out this evening in Fortaleza to meet Colombia in the 1/4 Finals of the World Cup, they will do their impression of the blind leading the blind. They have a new ritual whereby they captain, Thiago Silva, walks on to the pitch and the next in line puts his right hand on the captain’s shoulder. The third player then puts his hand on the second player’s shoulder, and so on all the way down the line until the 11th player who has nobody’s hand on his shoulder, except maybe for that of fate.

This ritual was first seen in Brazil’s opening game of the World Cup against Croatia. Apparently it was the brainchild of Silva and David Luiz and a friend of theirs. The explanation for the ritual is that “you can give your hand to anyone, but the shoulder is just for friends.” I’m not quite sure what that is supposed to mean.

Elephants ready to play football.

Personally, I don’t like this hands on shoulders things. As well as images of blind people crossing the road, I also see the elephants holding tails in the Jungle Book. But worse than these images is that it looks like forced camaraderie, that they were looking around for a gesture to show how much they are a team, instead of 11 individuals.

Where they are getting it right is during the singing of the national anthem. At this point, the team comes together with arms around each other’s shoulders and they sing the national anthem with the crowd, continuing when the music has stopped due to absurd FIFA regulations. This seems a lot more natural to me, as opposed to the shuffling onto the pitch of 11 people forced to play football together.