Plus or Minus 20 years

Brazil is an interesting place. I think technically it is considered a third world country, although I might be wrong there. Either way, there are definitely parts of the country that are very well off and doing well in life, however there are more people on the other end of the spectrum with hardly anything. That said, Brazil to me seems to be either way ahead of the US or way behind.

Today one of the guys I was talking to was reminiscing about how 20 years ago you had to wait forever to get a land line for a telephone installed in your house. Well, were I lived 7 years ago, you still had to wait years for a land line to be installed. As a result, most people had cell phones. I don't know if this is still the case, but back then if you received a call on a cell phone it didn't count against your minutes. You only used minutes if you made a call from a cell phone. I think Brazil today has a more advanced cell phone network, and from what I can tell people here take advantage of it. Most people can't afford a computer to connect to the internet, but they can afford a cell phone and access the net. Speaking of cell phones, I have seen a few iPhones here, and there isn't even an official iPhone carrier in Brazil yet.

Also, in the States we are trying to get off our dependence of gasoline. Well here in Brazil, at almost every gas station you have three types of fuel: Gasoline, Alcohol, and Natural Gas. And a lot of cars are flexible between Gasoline and Alcohol, and a fair amount of vehicles use all three types of fuel. It is pretty amazing that here in this "poor" country they have the infrastructure to pull this off, and with all the wealth the US has we can barely make hybrids economical.

However, Brazil is a bit behind when it comes to traditional roles. One interesting thing today was the secretary of the office today spent most of the day bringing us drinks and snacks and making sure we were comfortable. Not only did she bring those things, but she brought them on a serving tray and poured our drinks for us. Also, at one point she got her boss his afternoon medicine to make sure he would take it. I don't know many secretary's in the states that do those kinds of things, but I imagine it would be rather rare. I could be wrong on that though.

And this has nothing to do with how "advanced" or not Brazil is, but they drink Coffee here like it is a shot in a bar. The cups are tiny, and they drink all the coffee in one swallow, maybe two. No wonder they think Americans are excessive. One Grande Latte Cappuccino from Starbucks is the equivalent of like 10 of their coffee's. To be fair though, I think there coffee is way more concentrated than a typical American coffee.

I am not trying to knock Brazil, just point out differences I find interesting. I love this place, and enjoy the time I spend here. Just trying to paint a picture of how some things here are different than Americans are used to.