My Second Interview

Introduction:

I chose Brazil because is a very interesting South American country. It has a very rich social and political history. Brazil is a country known for its climate, its beaches and for the great humor of people. I wanted to know more about this country through the eyes and thoughts of a Brazilian citizen.

Preparation:

To prepare myself for the interview, I read some material about Brazilian society, habits, culture and some of historical facts. I prepared then, a list of simple questions to give me another perspective on what I wanted to know.

At that time I remembered I have known a girl from the ESL she is a Brazilian girl, during a weekend holiday I asked my group of friends if anyone remembered this girl’s name and finally the search got a result. Her name was Iliana Perez I got in touch with her through e-maiI. The previous days we talked by the phone and I had the chance to explain her better the idea of my interview.

Interview report:

Priscilla and I agree to meet at a coffee shop. The initial talk was friendly and light. Previously to start the questioning I thanked her for helping me, and she told me it would be a good opportunity for her to show in words how her country is.

Interview Bio:

Iliana Perez is from Recife, State of Pernambuco, Brazil,  she’s been here for year and a half.  

Country Report:

Brazil

largest nation in Latin America, comprises slightly under half the land mass of the South American continent and shares a border with every South American country except Chile and Ecuador. It is the size of the continental United States excluding Alaska.

Brazil's physical environment and climate vary greatly from the tropical North to the temperate South. The landscape is dominated by a central highland region known as the Planalto Central (Brazilian Highlands, or Plateau of Brazil) and by the vast AmazonBasin which occupies overone-third of the country.The central plateau juts into theseaina few areas along Brazil's 4,500-mile-long, (7,240-kilometer-long) coast, but it more often runs parallel to the ocean, creating a fertile, lowland area.

Brazil is a land rich in natural resources, principally iron ore, bauxite, manganese, nickel, uranium, gold, gemstones, oil, and timber.

The physical environment in each region determined the types of crops grown or the resources extracted and this, in turn, influenced the populations that settled there and the social and economic systems that developed. Brazil's economic history, in fact, has been marked by a succession of cycles, each one based on the exploitation of a single export commodity: timber (brazilwood) in the first years of colonization; sugarcane in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; precious metals (gold) and gems (diamonds) in the eighteenth century; and finally, coffee in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Brazil's northeast coast with its rich soils became the most prosperous region early on as vast sugar plantations were created to supply a growing demand for that product in Europe. Beginning in the seventeenth century, African slaves were imported to provide labor for these plantations. This is why even today the Northeast is the region with the strongest African influence.

The Southeast also received large numbers of African slaves during the gold boom of the eighteenth century and the coffee boom beginning in the nineteenth century. This region also attracted new immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, and Japan who established family farms and eventually urban businesses.

In contrast, the South—with a climate unsuited to either coffee or sugar—became the destination of many German and Italian immigrants who raised cattle and grew a variety of crops. The heritage of the Northeast coast, based on slave labor and a plantation economy, was distinct from that of the South and Southeast, where plantations existed along with small family farms. Such historical differences partly account for contemporary contrasts between these regions.

Another regional distinction, that between litoral (coast) and interior (inland), arises from the fact that settlement in Brazil has always been concentrated near the coast. To say that someone is from the "interior" usually implies that he or she is from a rural area, even though there are large cities located far from the coast. Although the gold boom of the eighteenth century and the rubber boom of the nineteenth century led to the growth of inland cities, the real movement to settle the heartland of the country began only in the late 1950s with the construction of the new national capital, Brasília, in the Central-West.

Brazil is probably best known as the land of the Amazon, the world's largest river in area drained and volume of water and second only to the Nile in length. The Amazon forest contains the world's largest single reserve of biological organisms, and while no one knows how many species actually exist there, scientists estimate the number could be as high as five million, amounting to 15 to 30 percent of all species on earth.

Demography

 The population of Brazil was about 170 million in 2000, the sixth largest in the world after China, India, the United States, Indonesia, and the Russian Federation. Despite its large population, Brazil's demographic density is relatively low. Although there has been significant population movement into the interior in recent decades, about 80 percent of all Brazilians still live within two hundred miles of the Atlantic coast.

Fertility rates have dropped dramatically in Brazil in the last three or four decades of the twentieth century, with the completed fertility rate at the turn of the twenty-first century down to an average of 2.1 children per woman. Nevertheless, the population will continue to grow in the first twenty or thirty years of the twenty-first century because of the nation's current youthful age structure.

The Brazilian population has three major components. Somewhere between 2.5 and 5 million Brazilian Indians inhabited Brazil when the Portuguese first arrived in the early sixteenth century. Divided into many different cultures with distinct institutions, Brazilian Indians spoke a large number of languages. Today they comprise only about .02 percent of the country's population. Their numbers fell rapidly as a result of displacement, warfare and, most importantly, the introduction of European diseases against which they had no immunity. By 1955, only 120,000 Brazilian Indians were left and they were thought to be on the road to extinction. This downward trend has been reversed, however. Their numbers are now increasing owing to improved health care, lower incidence of disease, declining infant mortality, and a higher fertility rate. Contemporary estimates of the indigenous population range from 280,000 to 300,000; the population may reach 400,000 early in the new millennium.

Afro-Brazilians, the descendants of millions of slaves brought primarily from West Africa to Brazil over a three-hundred-year period, are the second major component of the national population. Afro-Brazilians and people of mixed racial ancestry account for at least 45 percent of the Brazilian population at the end of the twentieth century.

Brazil also has a large population of mixed European, mainly Portuguese, descent. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Brazil was the destination of many immigrants from Italy, Germany, and Spain. During the same era smaller numbers of immigrants arrived from Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Rounding out the demographic picture are, Japanese-Brazilians, descendants of Japanese who came to Brazil in the first decades of the 20th century, and Koreans who began arriving in the 1950s. Still, Brazil is among the most racially heterogeneous countries on earth and these distinct categories are somewhat misleading in that many, perhaps most, Brazilians are of mixed ancestry.

Food in Daily life

 Rice, beans, and manioc form the core of the Brazilian diet and are eaten at least occasionally by all social classes in all parts of the nation. Manioc is a root crop that is typically consumed as farinha , manioc flour sprinkled over rice and beans, or farofa , manioc flour sautéed in a bit of oil with onions, eggs, olives, or other ingredients. To this core, meat, poultry, or fish are added, but the frequency of their consumption is closely tied to financial well-being. While the middle and upper classes may consume them on a daily basis, the poor can afford such protein sources far less often.

Traditionally the most important meal of the day is a multicourse affair eaten after midday. For middle-class and elite families it might consist of a pasta dish or a meat or fish course accompanied by rice, beans, and manioc and a sweet dessert or fruit followed by tiny cups of strong Brazilian coffee called cafezinho. For the poor it would be primarily rice and beans. The evening repast is simpler, often consisting of soup and perhaps leftovers from the midday meal.

As Brazil urbanizes and industrializes, the leisurely family-centered meal at midday is being replaced by lanches (from the English, "lunch"), smaller meals usually consumed in restaurants, including ones featuring buffets that sell food by the kilo and such ubiquitous fast-food eateries as McDonalds. The poor, who cannot afford restaurants, are likely to eat the noon meal at home, to buy snacks sold on the street, or to carry food with them to work in stacked lunch buckets. In rural areas itinerant farm laborers who are paid by the day and who carry such buckets have been dubbed bóias-frias, "cold lunches."

Portuguese colonialism shows its influence in large cities, with churches and market stalls converging on central plazas.

Meals may be accompanied by soft drinks— including guaraná, made from a fruit that grows in the Amazon—beer, or bottled water.

Interview 

Me: What’s your name?

I: My name is Iliana Perez

M: Where are you from?

I: I am from Brazil, and I was born in Recife, which is the capital city of Pernambuco. Recife is a beautiful city located in the north-eastern area of Brazil.

M: Tell me about your family, are they here with you?

I: No, they are still living in Brazil. My father is a hotel manager; my mother is a high school teacher. I have got a younger brother and an older sister, both studying in my hometown.

M: Why did you choose this country to live?

I: My idea was to live here for a while in order to perfect my English and find other interesting careers to study.

M: How was your English before coming here?

I: Was quite basic. Since I am here I have learned a lot, and enjoy learning small new things every day.

M: Do you miss your city and your family?

I: I do sometimes miss my city. Of course I miss my family a lot, but I think this has been a good opportunity for me to grow up and be able to have better chances.

M: How about your friends in Brazil? Have you made friends here?

I: I have a lot of friends back in Brazil. Most of them from my preschool time and primary school. I have also made friends here, and for me that is one of the good things this kind of experiences have; the chance of meeting people from different parts of the world, their cultures and habits.

M: What can you tell me about your country?

I: Well, Brazil is the biggest country in South America and in Latin America. Its language is Portuguese, and in a lower level people also speak Spanish and English. The economy is in a growing process, though politics as in many places is kind of difficult to deal with. We have a democratic regime, and our government system is very similar to the one the United States has.

M: What are your plans after finishing your studies here?

I: I would love to study literature and ancient poetry before returning to my country and be a good teacher like my mother.