Personal Biography

When you´re dealing with not only a different language but also with a different culture, first question that comes to your mind when asked to write a “personal biography” is “What are they expecting?”.  And you start to wonder if “Is there a ‘template’ for a personal biography in this country?”

I do not have answers by now, at least not “positive” answers as we IT professionals do like.

So let me start describing myself the way we do in “legal” documents:  Pedro Francisco Borges Pereira, Brazilian, married, Software Developer, living at Jardine Apartments.   

I shall also say that after 30 years working with Software Development, I started a major in Information Systems at ULBRA (Universidade Luterana do Brasil) in 2009.  I´m in United States for one year to attend some courses related with my major and then I´ll be back to Brazil to graduate.

But please allow me to use a different approach and provide a more personal description of myself: 

My name is Pedro Pereira, as my grandfather.  I loved and admired my grandfather, so I believe it´s an honor and a responsibility to use his name.  I was born in Jaguarão, in 1956.  My father was Evaristo Pereira, who was a Brazilian Government Customs Officer and worked patrolling the Brazil-Uruguay border, riding a horse and carrying a .45 pistol. 

Jaguarão, my hometown, was - and still is - a small town.  We lived in a street with no pavement, with no traffic at all.  It was more usual a wagon, or horsemen, passing by, than cars.  A car was so unusual that sometimes we boys called each other to see the "phenomenon"!  To go to school, we walked thru fields where cows and horses grazed.  After school, we small boys could have fun in a lot of ways - playing soccer, pretending to be "indians" and "soldiers"...  We had some accidents, of course - once I´ve been hit for a stone, in the head, that knocked me out.  A friend of mine has been kicked by a horse.  But it was a very nice place for a boy to grow up. 



The Brazil-Uruguai Bridge

The border gate in the bridge

The main church

A typical street

Rodeo in Jaguarão

Jaguarão is completely in harmony with my State´s culture.  We Brazilians from Rio Grande do Sul call ourselves “gaúchos”.   The etymology of this name is controversial, the fact is it names not only those who are born in Rio Grande do Sul but also Uruguayans and Argentinians.  It is said that we Brazilians from Rio Grande do Sul have more in common with Uruguayans and Argentinians than with Brazilians from other Brazilian States.  Our culture is indeed very peculiar, maintaining strong links with a past in which the main activity was cattle raising.  

An Argentinian gaucho (probably around 1920 - see more in http://www.argentour.com/en/gaucho/gaucho.php )

Our typical dish is "churrasco".  Some translate it as "barbecue", but it is very different from American barbecue.  The traditional churrasco is just cow meat roasted on a fire on the ground.  Nowadays most houses and apartments has a fireplace suited to roast churrasco.  Every human male in Rio Grande do Sul - including me - claims to be able to do the best churrasco!  And if he hasn´t a fireplace, some bricks properly arranged will do.  What matters is to have churrasco!

“Churrasco gaucho” – Gaucho barbecue, the traditional way

Churrasco Gaúcho  – the way every family nowadays has in the weekends in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul capital

We are a people very devoted to tradition, and one of the more important events in our history is the "Revoução Farroupilha", celebrated in September with camps and parades in all cities of Rio Grande do Sul.



Parade celebrating the Farroupilha Revolution, in September 20.  

This revolution happened in 1835 intending to proclaim Rio Grande do Sul an independent and republican country, apart of the Brazilian Empire.  It started the “War of the Tatters”, so called because the rebel soldiers were poor peasants who had not military training, or weapons – many had just spears and knifes - or even clothes to replace those that were torn in journeys and battles.  Pejoratively called “tattered” by the Empire soldiers, they began to use that name with proud.  They were men hardened by the labors of cattle ranches, many of them veterans of the border fights with Uruguay, all superb riders - and wearing tatters and brandishing spears they defied the Brazilian Empire Army for ten years, until 1845, when a peace agreement has been made.   

Until now September 20 is a very important date in Rio Grande do Sul, similar to Fourth of July to Americans.

As an adult, I moved to Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul capital.  Porto Alegre is  a city with 2.000.000 inhabitants, at the shores of Guaiba River, with strong industrial activity (steel, cellulose, automobiles, parts, etc.) and commerce and services activities according.  It´s an excellent job market for software developers and that´s why I decided to live there.  Porto Alegre also has several excellent colleges - Pontificia Universidade Católica (PUC), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Universidade do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS), and several others, including the Universidade Luterana do Brasil (ULBRA), where I do study. 



Porto Alegre docks

Downtown at night

"Parque da Redenção" - Redemption Park.  The "official" name, given by the City Hall in 1935, is "Parque Farroupilha".  But in this place, in 1884, all slaves in Porto Alegre has been set free, 5 years before than in the rest of Brazil.  Since this people started to call this place "Redemption Field".  And until now everybody calls it "Redemption Park".

That´s where I came from, that´s my state and my city.
"Parque da Redenção" is my favorite place to jogging and exercising outdoors!
I could say that this park is my "backyard", since I live in an apartment just a few hundred meters of it.  Since my fourteen years old daughter was a baby we go to this park to enjoy the playgrounds, the amusement park, the boats at the artificial lake, or just sit in the sun and have some "chimarrão", our typical beverage!



Having "chimarrão" at Parque da Redenção

Chimarrão

But not everything in Porto Alegre, or in me, is just “gaucho” culture.

I also enjoy a lot samba music and samba dancing, which is typically from Rio de Janeiro.  I actually feel kind of proud that, when I went to Rio, I danced samba at Lapa, the bohemian quartier.

I´ve also practiced a little bit of Capoeira, the Brazilian martial art, which is originally from Rio de Janeiro and Bahia.

Porto Alegre is a very cosmopolitan city, and so I had the chance of attending Zen meditation classes for several months.  The Zen community was leaded by a Japanese monk and sub-leaded by a German female monk.

 Rio Grande do Sul is a state with lots of German and Italian immigrants.  I´ve lived in a city at 150 Km from Porto Alegre, called Bento Gonçalves, which is inhabited almost exclusively by Italian immigrants.  There I learned to enjoy Italian food – and say bad words in Italian!

I think that for an introduction I´ve said enough, maybe too much.

If I have bored you, I beg your pardon.  I didn´t meant it.

If you want to know more about Brasil, I have a lot more to share!