Proverbial

(In which one makes the proverbial presentation.)

If you were to sign up for Orkut, chances are you’d end up only finding communities where people speak in Portuguese. Even if its name is in English, it will most likely have been taken over by Brazilians who make no effort to try and communicate in some other language. In services where some sort of English-only policy is enforced, like Newsvine, you’d be hard-pressed to find Brazilian authors.

This has bothered me for quite some time. Even more so because people are always willing to vilify foreign journalists who dare criticize anything about the country - such as the current air traffic control crisis. Even a preposterous movie like “Turistas” is enough for all sorts of conspiracy theories about the gringos wanting to prevent our growth to pop up in the media.

With that in mind, in 2005, I started a blog to post translations to English of articles and news from Brazilian media. I abandoned it a few months later, unable to keep a decent flow of posts and/or find enough contributors to share the load with. A couple of weeks ago, though, someone brought the subject up in Barcamp Brasil’s discussion group, and I couldn’t help but side with those who said that it’s kind of nonsensical to talk about digital inclusion (.br) in Brazil without also talking about teaching them English.

Which, in turn, led me to think I should put my brain where my mouth was. I already keep a Newsvine account where I post articles regarding technology in Brazil, that I think might be of interest to a larger audience. But I thought that this might be a good moment to start a more general, personal blog, in English, where I’d post whatever fancied me. This is it.