Many expats come to Brazil and make the mistake of trying to compare everything here to the way things are at home. Worse still, some even come here and seem bent on trying to turn the country into a Xerox copy of what they left behind. Don't be one of them, because you are only letting yourself in for great disappointment and it will really hinder your successful adaptation to living in this country. Just like Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto!"
So the next time you're tempted to make a comparison, or wonder why things are so different here, or get a bad case of the "over home" bug (the one where you say "Well it's not like this over home"), just take a look at the map above which compares the Brazilian states to the country nearest in size to that state. Is your country free of problems? I bet not! Can you begin to imagine the problems that are going to exist in a country that is as big as these 27 different nations? Just remember that many of the problems here have existed for the 550 plus years since Brazil was discovered too. If you think you're going to change that, best think again.
Sure, there are a lot of things wrong with this country. What country doesn't have something wrong with it? The sooner you realize that you should just accept Brazil for what it is, exactly as it is, the better off you're going to be. We can all gripe about it, that's no problem. Just don't expect that things are going to change... get it off your chest and let it go.
Cheers,
James Expat-blog Experts Team