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Over on Facebook a while back Keith Brenton quoted from Star Trek: “If I may be so bold: It was a mistake for you to accept promotion. Starship command is your first, best destiny. Anything less is a waste of material.” – Mr. Spock to Admiral Kirk, Star Trek II. Then Keith asked, “What’s your first, best destiny?” The answer that came immediately to my mind: “Mission in Brazil.” That’s got me thinking. A lot.
For a couple of years I taught English and did missionary work in Brazil, South America. My wife is Brazilian-American, and my children were both born there. One day while I still lived there a letter came in the mail from a woman who attended a church I’d served in Missouri. I don’t remember anything else she said in the letter, but I do remember she said: “you’re living your dream!” That day as I rode the city bus home from work I saw a Brazilian flag flying high over a John Deere dealership (yes, they have those there) and remembered her words. I felt a deep sense of satisfaction. It’s been a while now since I felt that way.
We left Brazil for a multitude of reasons, not least of which being the tenuous financial situation of both the country and our household, and the fact my permanent visa was taking so long to be approved. Our intention was to move back in five years. That was 2003, it’s now 2009 and I haven’t been back once. My wife went to visit her family in 2006 and my mother-in-law has been to visit us in New Jersey a couple of times.
What happened?
There’s a large Brazilian population in the part of New Jersey where we live, and we attend a Brazilian church. Products from Brazil are readily available at area supermarkets. I don’t have to deal with the frustrations and indignities of life in a developing nation still hung over (though they’d scarecely admit it) from years of a military dictatorship and rife with silly, counter-productive ideologies. Still, it just isn’t the same.
We have a good life here in the United State and I can’t see uprooting our family for another major move, but that doesn’t change my sense that Brazil was, is and will always be my “first, best destiny.”
Once while I was attending a church youth retreat in Belém, Brazil a young man asked me the meaning of a word. While I assumed it was an English word, he was pronouncing it as though it were Portuguese, and I had trouble understanding him. He spelled it out for me. The word was “file.” After translating the word for him, he said, “That’s sort of what I thought it meant.” As it turns out, he’d seen the word many times on a computer and always wondered about it.
What I don’t understand about the experience I just related above is that in Brazil Windows (the most common OS) comes already in Brazilian Portuguese. Why did he see “file” instead of “arquivo” on his computer?
In any event, those familiar with software and computers know it’s one thing to be a user, and it’s quite another to be a tech. OSes can come pre-installed on computers already set to the local language, assuming it is available. Those who work professionally with technology in non-English speaking countries don’t have the luxury of working only in their own language.
Manuals and most daily tech reports are availably primarily, and often exclusively, in English. The situation becomes only more serious if someone wants to get into programming, as at least some English is involved in these, and the higher programming languages utilize English extensively. Some English knowledge is needed to get by in the field of computer science, but some level of fluency is essential to excelling professionally.
Having taught English as a foreign language in Brazil, and later as a Second Language in the United States, I know what’s involved in the process. It doesn’t happen overnight, and students need to be as motivated as their teachers need to be creative and clear. As I think about the possibilities for launching or cooperating with tech training programs in Brazil, I realize that instruction in the English language is going to have to be a some component of it.
See Also:
Someplace Wired
