Brazil. SJ Dodgson. MJoTA 2012 v7n1 p0609
Above,
the Brazilian Ambassador to the United States of America addresses an
audience gathered to talk about investment opportunities in Brazil on
Jun 5, 2012. He is surrounded by well-wishers from the City of
Philadelphia, second from the left is the Hon Stanley Straughter, click here; third from the left is my favorite Philadelphia Councilwoman, Hon Mrs Jannie Blackwell.
Exhausted,
but cheerful and getting ready to head off to the center of South
Philly for the annual Odunde festival. We have been gearing up for this
all week: we are celebrating Brazil, which has the world's second
largest population of Black Africans. So I was told. Gosh!
We
piled into a large auditorium at Wharton on Tuesday to hear from the
Ambassador from Brazil and the man in charge of the 2014 FIFA World Cup
preparations. He spoke in Portuguese and was translated, all around me
Brazilians were shaking their heads and saying that the translations
were wrong! But I got the idea: Brazil is on the move from the
desperately poor and badly governed country it was.
I
am trying to figure out what happened; I remember when I was an
assistant professor of Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania we
had a Brazilian post-doc who was supposed to me a medical graduate who
did not know how to make a solution of sodium hydroxide. This is so
basic it got him fired. I was later told that his uncle has a senior
academic position and he was pushed through medical school without
achieving competency. This story has haunted me ever since. And the same
thing happened with a Brazilian who had succeeded in getting a place in
a residency program.
I certainly know Brazilians who have
passed exams on merit, and who are extremely competent professionals. Brazil is a huge country, one-third of South America, with a population zooming towards 200 million. And has a lot of medical schools, a lot of well-trained physicians. However, the fact that any could get through medical school lacking basic competence really bothered
me: this was deeply damaging to competent professionals.
In the
1990s, due partly I expect to the 24/7 7-day party that the FIFA 2014
speaker told us about, the high rate of HIV infection in Brazil was
killing its future. The Brazilian Government broke the patents of HIV
drugs, and Brazil has never looked back in its successful fight against
HIV infection and treatment.
Brazil
has clearly turned a corner, but I am hearing from other sources about
prostitutes convincing rich Nigerians to fly them to Nigeria to marry
them.
Ah!
Endless stories about Brazil, but my favorite one is from the 2002 AIDS
conference in Barcelona, which I attended as a medical writer for the
drug manufacturer Pfizer. Brazil had just won the FIFA World Cup, and
every Brazilian at the conference was dressed in a horrible yellow tee
shirt that looks spectacular on a winning soccer player. They showed
solidarity with their country in its fight against AIDS. HIV/AIDS news click here. HIV/AIDS resources click here.
Maybe that is my answer! Horrible yellow tee shirts. What can I say but congratulations Brazil! You are a winner!
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Map and flag from Wikipedia
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News feed from Brazil Sun
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World Cup 2014: Brazil! SJ Dodgson MJoTA 2014 v8n1 p0305
Brazil has not won the last 2 World Cups, not in 2010, not in 2006 after their 5th win in 2002. So they are ready, and with World Cup 2014 on their own turf, they are out to annihilate everyone.
I love statistics, and World Cup statistics show that when Brazil gets into the finals, they are more likely to win than other teams getting into the finals. Brazil has won more than any other country.
Brazil is a huge country, a plucky country, the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas, where more people speak Portuguese than in Portugal, or in all the Portuguese-speaking African countries combined. Get ready for the World Cup, learn some Portuguese on this page.
I was thinking about going to Brazil for the World Cup, but a price per ticket of around $1000 makes the idea absurd. Watching the World Cup live is for rich folks. The rest of us fall into a pub and scream along with the locals. Yeah!! Getting my screaming voice ready!
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