¶N¤¢01ş02LIFE IN BRAZIL!ş01


 ¢02Written by: ¢03Dark Side/Foda.

 ¢02   Well,  this  article  was  made to
 tell  everybody  a  bit more about my
 country, ¢15Brasil¢02.  I hope you like it,
 and  if  enough  people  want,  I can
 write a bit more in the future.
    Brasil's  a  cool  place  to live.
 The country is pretty big, so there's
 a  lot  of  differences  between  the
 regions.    The  southern  region  is
 better, because it's not too hot, and
 also it is more developed.
    My  city  is  located  just 1 hour
 from  Sao  Paulo,  a  very good city,
 with  lots of cool places to go, like
 dance  halls,  restaurants,  and even
 some  big  parties.  Sao Paulo is ¢01NOT
 ¢02in  the middle of the jungle, as many
 might  think.   The  southern part of
 Brasil  can  be compared to countries
 like  Portugal  and  Spain,  and even
 Italy,  because  there  are  a lot of
 immigrants who came to Brasil.
    There's  a  lot of white people in
 here  too.   The  "¢03primitive¢02" kind of
 people  many  think  that exists here
 are  from  the  northern  part of the
 country,  very  poor,  and  very much
 like  Africa.   Brasil  is really two
 countries   into   one,   since   the
 differences  between  south and north
 are huge.
    Most  of  the stuff you can buy in
 Europe  is  available  here  too.  We
 even   have   3  CD  factories  here,
 something    that    most    european
 countries don't have.
    The  most popular computer here at
 the   moment   is  the  PCs,  because
 they're  cheap,  but there are also a
 lot  of  Amigas.   The Amigas we have
 here all came from the USA, so we use
 the  NTSC  TV  standard,  even if the
 brasilian TV uses the european PAL.
    The   Brasilian  TV  channels  are
 known   in   the   world   for  their
 "novelas", or soap-operas.  This kind
 of  stuff  are very popular here too.
 One of the biggest TV channels in the
 world is from Brasil, and it's called
 TV  GLOBO.   We have lots of channels
 available  here,  all  very different
 from  each  other.   We  even  have a
 special  MTV Brasil !  There are also
 now   special   cable  and  satellite
 channels,  showing  stuff  from other
 countries.  ¢01 (Note  from  HWT:   Well
 ¢01over  here  in  Australia  - we don't
 ¢01even   have   MTV   nor   cable   and
 ¢01satellite  - and only 3 TV stations!)
   ¢02 Everybody   must  have  heard  now
 about   the  Amazon  forest  here  in
 Brasil.   It  is the biggest tropical
 forest  in  the world.  The Americans
 are  trying to get in control of that
 area,  but they haven't suceeded yet.
 But  even  if  they don't control the
 whole  area, they (the Americans) are
 responsible  for  the  destruction of
 the  jungle,  something that THEY say
 that us Brasilians are doing...
    The  language  in Brasil is called
 Portuguese,  and it's not exactly the
 same as Portugal's, because there are
 some differences on the speaking, and
 also  on many words.  Our currency is
 called  "Cruzeiros",  and it has been
 changed  names  a lot of times in the
 last  years.   Actually, one American
 dollar    is    worth   about   15000
 Cruzeiros.
    The Brasilian economy have been in
 a bad situation for a long time.  The
 prices  get up almost every day.  For
 example,  today  you can buy a bottle
 of  CocaCola for 10000 Cruzeiros, and
 next  month  you  can  expect  to pay
 about  13000  Cruzeiros  for the same
 bottle.   The  people have grown used
 to  this  inflation, that recently is
 at  about 25% a month, but I remember
 inflations  of  almost 100 % a month!
 ¢01(Note  from  HWT:   The inflation for
 ¢01last year in Australia was 0.3%!)
  ¢02  With all the prices getting higher
 every month, you must think that your
 salary  gets  higher too, right?  But
 no!   Your salary here is just raised
 each  4  months, or when your company
 wants to!
    The postage costs here are not too
 expensive, at least for europeans.  A
 letter  with a disk to any country is
 at less than US$1, and with two disks
 is at about US$2.  A big package with
 500g of stuff costs about US$7.  That
 might  not be much for the Europeans,
 but   when   you  consider  that  the
 average  salary of the people here is
 about $100, then these prices are not
 too  cheap.   Our  post  is  also too
 lame,  since  they take a lot of time
 to  deliver the stuff to and from the
 outside.
    In  Brasil  there's NO Amiga scene
 whatsoever,  because  nobody  here is
 interested  in spending money just to
 get   some   demos.   Anyway,  almost
 nobody here in Brasil likes demos and
 stuff  like  that.  Everybody here is
 interested only on gaming.  There are
 also people that's only interested in
 making   money,  so  they  use  their
 graphic  skills  to  draw  stuff  for
 video-producers,   instead  of  doing
 stuff  for  the  scene.  There are NO
 brasilian groups at the moment, and I
 don't  think  that  ever was.  I only
 remember  a dude from here that was a
 member   of   an   old  group  called
 ¢01MEGAPOWERS¢02,   and   that's   all  for
 Brasilian Amiga users!
    There  are  a  lot  of  BBS around
 here,   but  most  of  them  are  not
 scene-related, and also they're slow,
 because Brasilian phone lines are too
 lame.   The  best  speed  you can get
 here is 9600.
    For  Amiga magazines, there's only
 a horrible one called CPU.  They only
 publish    stuff    translated   from
 American  magazines,  and  they don't
 talk even know about the scene...
    Most people think that the weather
 here  in very hot.  For the most part
 they're  right,  but  there  are also
 places that even snows!  My town is a
 very hot one, even on the winter!
    That's  all  for  now.  I hope you
 liked  this  article, and if you want
 to  ask  me  something,  look  for my
 address somewhere on the magazine!!