Brazil

Ciro Santilli's birth country.

An awesome country, with amazing people and natural resources, and without an evil government like China.

When visiting Brazilian cities coming from Europe, one of the things that shocks the most is the amount of motorcycles. It seems that the poorer the country, the less people's lives are worth, and the more motorcycles there are.

Another thing that was shocking is the amount of phone spam when you get a new SIM card, some legal and some likely illegal. Everyone is desperate for cash it seems on a poor country, and everyone fights hard for it.

This is a good initiative. Since the government is incapable of doing shit in this area, individuals have to do it themselves.

They even have a scholarship program...: www.bolsas.gobrasa.org/

Ciro Santilli lived there from 1995 to 1997.

Ciro Santilli's birthplace!

Ciro Santilli lived in Santos from about the year 1998 to 2007, with a 10 month hiatus in Coventry, UK, until he went to the University of São Paulo.

Santos is the nearest beach city to São Paulo City, and for this reason:

Ciro idolizes Santos as the perfect location to live nature-wise due to its amazing wide sandy beach, in which Ciro spent endless hours walking on the sand and on the largest beachfront garden in the world (archive), meditating, and playing some soccer after school was over. Santos is also the city where Pelé first played professionally.

Ciro has visited Santos several times after leaving Brazil. Doing this gives him a weird feeling of having a separate life, in which time passes 2 weeks every few years. Of course, as your family grows, it gets harder and harder to go back home, and your family members might want to just go travel to more interesting places than just stay at your wonderful beach which you love in part due to nostalgia.

Ciro is also fond of the concept of the small public buildings near the beach garden (postos de praia), which serve different cultural activities: library, comic book store, art cinema, surf school. It is such a shame that the library and comic book ones are in such bad shape as of 2020, old books and poor people who go there to sleep a bit in the barely working air conditioning. Ciro fantasizes how those could instead be cultural hubs for the gathering of the brightest artists, and scientists, of town. Maybe they are just too small. Maybe it is not within the realm of possibility of public service. Maybe, we should focus instead in the poorer regions, far form the beach. But the dream remains.

Santos only has one natural defect: mosquitoes. By the sea it is fine because the wind is strong, and they don't like salt water. But anywhere else, you will be eaten alive, and maybe get dengue, Ciro got it once. Gene drive, please.

This instagram page has several drone videos of the region: www.instagram.com/malta.drone

Although Ciro Santilli lived in São Paulo City nominally during his studies, it would be more precise to say that he lived in University of São Paulo-land, because Ciro was cheap, didn't have a car, and did nothing but study, stay at home, go back to Santos to see his parents and the beach.

But the little he saw of the city made a deep impression on him.

The unreasonable size.

The unbearable contrasts.

Caetano's Sampa is the ultimate description of the city!

Once upon a time, this must have been a nice covered market.

But as of 2020, it is completely surrounded by extremely poor people, to the point that it makes you scared if you stand out in any way by showing any kind of middle/upper class wealth, or being a foreigner.

The market is basically a touristic spot that no person in Sao Paulo will ever go to (unless they are young, single, and can just walk in there by themselves) in the middle of this surreal environment.

In 2020 Ciro was there with his wife on a touristic visit. Living in Europe at the time, he felt even more privileged. So they went to a fruit stand, and the man started giving his wife amazing free samples of very exotic fruit, some of which Ciro had never tasted himself, without saying the price. It did feel like he was giving out too much for free. Then Ciro decided of course to buy some more fruits to pay for the show, which was a nice show. Then while buying, it came out a bit more expensive than would have been reasonable, but Ciro was too dazzled by the speed and noises, and he paid for it. Later on, he told his wife about it, and how he felt that they had added some ultra-expensive bulk fruits that were of a clearly lower level than the gold nuggets of the free samples (especially for Brazil's cost standards). The presenter was an extremely crafty con artist, and Ciro felt like they had specifically preyed on Ciro Santilli's self perceived compassionate personality, because it was apparent that those men were underprivileged and fighting for their living day by day with those over-expensive fruits. This was an extremely valuable lesson, Ciro was glad that it was learnt at a relatively low cost on that occasion.

This became a flag for the dissidents.

Portuguese Wikipedia: pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seja_Marginal,_Seja_Herói

Five votes:

All but president are per state. Official list seems to be e.g. for Sao Paulo: divulgacandcontas.tse.jus.br/divulga/#/estados/2022/2040602022/SP/candidatos

Japanese Brazilians are either model children, or they're good for nothings. There is no intermediate.

December 2023: www.tudogostoso.com.br/receita/81176-gelatina-de-abacaxi-com-creme-de-leite.html Terribly explained recipe! Used 5 spoons of sugar rather than 10, and a 300ml cup of double cream. Turned out OK, except that the cream condensed all on top, and assumed the same coarse texture as when you do a fatty beaf and let it cool, so not so nice,

Maybe this would be more successful: receitas.globo.com/tipos-de-prato/doces-e-sobremesas/gelatina-de-abacaxi-4e64345bddf17214b4003e71.ghtml They also use condensed milk, and beat the cream with the jelly, so it might mix better? It didn't really.

June 2024: Now going for:For some reason it became too liquid this time, the jelly didn't work very well. Not sure why. The pinneapple was a bit large.