Dear friends,
As I promised in our previous blog I owe you some more insights, this time not in Brazilian culture but in our own Dutch culture. I will share some of my insights which have developed in the last 7 months.
I did live abroad before, in a country which is probably far more different from the Dutch culture than Brazil, India, and I travelled a lot around the globe. Still, I can say that during my time here in Brazil I have learned a lot more. I knew that there is a huge difference in living or travelling abroad, but never could have imagined that this time the lesson would be so broad.
Where shall I start? Maybe, with the fact that I am a Dutch woman. What is typical about this? Well, we Dutch woman grew up with the teachings that;
1. We need to be (financially) independent
2. We are equal to men: have the same rights, need to use these rights fully and proof that we are equal
When I first heard that I wouldn’t get a work permit in Brazil, my whole mind screamed to refuse this. I already saw myself begging for money to buy clothes. I have always arranged everything myself: had a good salary, was career-minded, had great friends and travelled a lot. I completely matched the image of how a Dutch woman should be.
Here I project these points on women, but it is actually applicable for Dutch people in general. Below some examples you may recognize:
1. Never show off, we always say something like “ah, I was just lucky”. Here in Brazil people are proud of what they have reached and don’t hesitate in showing this.
2. ‘doe maar normaal dan doe je al gek genoeg’ (act normal then you are already weird enough). In Brazil people don’t care at all what other people think. Result: showing their full proportioned bodies (in shape or completely out-of-shape) with tight and sometimes (too) less clothes.
3. Treat people equal, that’s maybe why the Dutch are not so good in providing a service (example: the waiters at the Amsterdam terraces). Here in Brazil the client is king. They do everything for you and often there is an overload of employees willing to help.
However, after getting in touch with several women here in Sao Paulo, I got the insight that it would be really hard to find something without a permit and that it would be actually quite convenient/ a relief when there would be somebody who have time to arrange all the basics (car, house, governmental things, bank account etc.) for us. So, slowly I started to accept that the first couple of months I would be busy with arranging stuff for our life in Brazil. Notice that this was still in our preparation time, before moving to Brazil.
Then off course came the REAL experience. Not the imagined one, how it would be or what I hoped it to be. This experience turned out to be completely different then what I expected! I didn’t need to beg, I didn’t feel guilty. Actually it felt quite natural! Maybe there was still the old role pattern inside me of men and women, haha. Don’t get me wrong, for me it was not a license for doing nothing and spend my time at the swimming pool sun bathing. For me it was an insight in the fact that my mind made something up that I completely believed in. And if it wouldn´t be for our expat situation I would never have changed this. This process happens many times in our lives and is the cause for undertaking action or not.
Also the fact of not having a job was far easier than I thought. I really believed that I would be bored soon and would be horrified in taking the role of a housewife. But, Brazil gave me something to do all the time (see previous blogs). It was never finished. Suddenly, I also could sleep as if I never had slept before. Ronald asked me many times with surprise if I was ok, because in the past I was always the one who was full of energy and wanted to jump out of the bed immediately. What was happening to me? I saw another side of myself. A side I always had avoided and still would avoid if this Brazil situation didn’t put me there.
A consequence of all this was that I could reflect much better on the pro’s and con’s of my working life (in NL) versus my non-working life. I clearly saw that our Dutch culture is very result driven: we always need to perform better, earning more money, getting a higher position and combining all this with our social lives. It doesn’t surprise me that a lot of people are stuck at home with a burn out! We make our work so important, maybe too important! Who we are completely relates to the type of work we do and how others value this work. Dutch people live to work (although they will probably deny) and Brazilians work to live, that’s the difference.
Sanne
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