Reply #16: Not yet

[Squeech]

I was born in Boston (where I still live) and carry an American passport. Brazil is just a hobby, verging on an obsession. It's where I expect to retire to, or my bolthole in case I need to escape. I don't speak Portuguese yet, but my comprehension is almost good enough to read the newspaper and follow road directions.

Before me, Mrs. Squeech was married to a Brazilian. He's still a friend, and sometimes we double date with him and his sweetie. And we've kind of adopted his family-- the woman who might live in our condo after she gets married is his sister's daughter, and when we go to Brazil we hang out with that family. They live in Vitoria, the capital city of Espiritu Santo, the state next up the coast from Rio de Janeiro (which is both a state and the capital city of that state). Vitoria is fairly wealthy-- not only is it the only practical port from which to ship out the agricultural and mineral wealth of Minas Gerais (big state in the interior), but they've also recently struck oil offshore. (Our little apartment is now worth maybe twice what we bought it for in the '90s, because the oil companies have hired a bunch of people and they've been bidding up housing prices.)

We've also got a friend in the equatorial state of Pernambuco. He came to America on a student visa, and overstayed by about a decade, and when the INS caught up with him he was toast: they deported him and he can never return. He lives in Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, and teaches English for a living, but it's not a good living. Pernambuco is quite poor-- there are homeless kids sniffing glue on the street corner, and significant numbers of the storefronts in Lenildo's neighborhood don't sell anything but lottery tickets. (When people think their only way out of poverty is to hit the lottery, social mobility is not doing well. Same thing applies in the USA too, of course.) So we bought another condo in Recife for Lenildo to live in (it cost less than a car!), and when we visit Recife we stay with him.

Housing aside, the cost of living in Vitoria seems to be roughly a third of what it is in America. Recife is even cheaper, and there are actually some things about Recife that make it even more desirable-- a way cool art scene, and greater access to delectable tropical fruits. On the other hand, Recife suffers from dengue fever every year... But I wouldn't advise either place if you don't speak Portuguese; only Rio is really equipped to take care of monolingual English speakers, and they make you pay for the privilege.

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