Brazil - amaze us with your knowledge of the World Cup host

[CatherineHMumsnet]

With less than a month to go now until the 2014 FIFA World Cup kicks off, we thought it might be nice to boost our knowledge of the country that's holding it, beyond The Girl from Ipanema, the favelas, Pelé and Caipirinhas.

So treat this as a sort of Mumsnet Wiki - wow other Mumsnetters with things they might not know about the World's Fifth Largest Country (to start you off)....

That for this World Cup, Brazil forcibly evacuated and destroyed slum areas around Rio de Janeiro, making thousands of people homeless without any plans - or any care - where these people go as long as it's not in the host city. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilian people have been protesting against this and the funds being used for the World Cup which has met violent police brutality. People have died in the removals and in the protests. Brazilians have gone to several countries, including the UK, trying to get international support against Brazil's forcible removals from the slums and indigenous lands.

That Brazil is home to the most no-contact peoples within the Amazon - and that Brazilian government is ignoring the laws put in to protect them to allow businesses to destroy more area for logging and mining. For indigenous peoples that have attempted to fight against removal from their lands, many have been forcibly and violently removed from their lands against international law. People have died in these removals and the government/business risk genocide against no-contact peoples through disease (which has happened repeatedly in the past, entire peoples wiped out, which is why the laws are in place).

That the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, despite hundreds of thousands protesting, has involved the forced removal of 40,000 indigenous people and will destroy an area larger than the Panama canal.

That Portugal made Brazil the largest importer of slaves during the Transatlantic slave trade, and today Brazil has the largest Black population outside of Africa as well as a large Romani population who were also taken as slaves during this time. They, along with Brazilian indigenous peoples, are losing the most from the World Cup and upcoming Olympics.

What Spork described is why my stomach turns when I think of this year's world cup. The irony is that football is loved by almost everyone in Brazil, and is played with knackered balls by skinny street kids in the poorest parts of the country. But the rich will profit from the WC while the poor will suffer.

My Brazilian colleague tells me that an Irishman discovered Brazil!

Soap operas are on every hour at the end of the day and are a huge industry.

Brazilians pronounce most Ls as oo and D as DJ.

Brazil was a military dictatorship until a couple of decades ago.

The Brazilian currency has changed names and value many times over the last couple of decades.

They have rodizios, where waiters go around with huge chunks of roasted meat and serve it in slices directly to the tables. Or slices of pizza.

Football is an obsession. To the point of interrupting scientific congresses to watch games

Brazil spans 3 time zones.

I jumped off a mountain in Rio once, strapped to a hang glider and a strange little Brazilian man who thought he was Patrick Swayze, and landed on Ipanema beach.

It is an amazing and slightly scary place. I love it.

On the very badly driven buses, they show videos of bus crashes. The driving on the whole is scarily bad (and I love speed).

DH is there right now. Apparently 'Brazilian' barbecues are a big deal, with many many different bits of cow cooked in different ways, but you know, all barbecued.

That's about my sum total of knowledge about Brazil.

Brazilian police. Love the shoes.

In Rio, near some favelas, the police drive with riffles sticking out of the slightly open windows.
There is/was a road called "the Gaza strip" because it's between two favelas (and their gangs).

Picanha. Hmmmm

They love their meat here. And black bean stew, feijoada, everyone seems to have a pot on the go.

You are so right about the Omibuses, we have to share the road with them everyday on the school run.

Brazil shares borders with every country on the continent except Chile and Ecuador.

I just came on to post that one, as it's the only interesting fact I know. It's not fair! [whiny voice emoticon]

I am from there.

I was watching Michael palin on Sunday in prep for World Cup.

They imported more slaves from Africa than America.
They drive on the beach and the men have codes for the women.
They like festivals.

There' an awful lot of coffee in Brazil.

(Can't believe no one else posted that)

Brigadeiros. Yum.

Food sold by weight. There are these sort of cafes where you fill your plate, weight it and pay.

Coffee is usually dispensed in very small cups and it's free at these cafes.

Cassava root is often a substitute for chips in Brazil, its yum but if not cooked properly, the roots can release toxins such as cyanide

Lweji - kilo restaurants

My beautiful and unusual granite worktops came from Brazil. I ordered them and it took about two months to get from Brazil to my kitchen.

My granite has translucent bits and sparkly bits and is black, blue, green and white all swirled together like a view of the earth from space.

I dated a Brazilian a few years ago... most of the men can samba. and yes most Brazilian men are football mad.

louro - blond/fair - is Portugese, the Brazilian bf used to call me that sometimes as I'm you guessed it, blonde/fair.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b044jg7d

Was on BBC on Sunday night. This futbol fest is costing more than the last 6 WCs put together. And Brazilians will see little of the benefits.

Beautiful country, sad history, culture obsessed with beauty, art, violence, race. Like most of the rest of the developing world. Lived among thousands of Brazilians in Miami Beach and loved them dearly, but understood that it's difficult to live there bc of the class divide and its consequences. Same story as mine, but different country.

Plastic surgery and sex tourism are a big part of the Country's economy. Both exploitative.

There are situations of slavery still in rural provinces. Undocumented workers toiling for wealthy plantation owners.

Belem has a 2pm shower. It rains after lunch and then it's sunny again.

Anyone see this mural shared on social media?

www.slate.com/blogs/the_spot/2014/05/20/paulo_ito_world_cup_a_brazilian_street_artist_has_created_the_world_cup.html

The portrait of a weeping, starving Brazilian child with nothing to eat but a soccer ball is so simple and evocative that you don’t need to know much about Brazil to wrap your head around it.

wow - plenty here for us to get our teeth into. Am intrigued by the 2pm shower. If only the British weather was that predictable.