{"id":1,"date":"2025-06-01T00:01:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T00:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/?p=1"},"modified":"2025-06-01T22:27:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T22:27:26","slug":"pedro-arruda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/01\/pedro-arruda\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe are a little bit limitless, and we have an insatiable way of living\u201d \u2013 Pedro Arruda, a Brazilian student in Belgium, shares his\u00a0story."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Every time I come back to Brazil, it\u2019s like everything is boiling hot, and it\u2019s not only the weather. I can feel the effervescence. Everywhere you look around, there\u2019s life happening to its fullest.&nbsp;<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Pedro Arruda - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Translating Saudade\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fDospTdLc20?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro. I feel that \u2018cariocas\u2019, which is how we call people from my city, are easy going \u2013 we have a laid-back personality. We\u2019re not easy sometimes. I remember that one time I travelled to a beach with many big rocks, and writing on them is not socially acceptable. But there was one single rock that had a graffiti saying \u201ccarioca\u201d. Of course, it said carioca! That\u2019s us. We have a little bit of that rebellious energy and adventurous spirt. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For that reason, I always wanted to discover other cultures, other places. I wanted to travel and to experience things through the eyes of locals. I knew I wanted to live abroad, not because I wanted to leave my country, but because I wanted to have a rich, multicultural experience in life.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s why I moved to the United States for my high school when I was 17. It was fun, but also very challenging. I had quite a lot of cultural shocks. My transition to Belgium was way easier. Perhaps the shocks I had in the US prepared me for living in Europe, as it was not my first time moving to a new country. <br><br>So, after I graduated, I decided to move somewhere else, because I still wanted to live other cultures. My friend told me about Ghent once and, for some reason, it just stuck with me. I feel like it was meant to be. So, I moved here in September last year. I love it a lot, the Belgians are nice and welcoming. But I feel<em>&nbsp;saudade&nbsp;<\/em>of Brazil.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Saudade&nbsp;<\/em>is a Portuguese word that is untranslatable. It is more than missing something, it\u2019s longing for it.&nbsp;&nbsp;<em>Saudade<\/em>&nbsp;is when you feel like you have a part of that thing in your heart, but you still want to be there with it. I feel&nbsp;<em>saudade&nbsp;<\/em>of my family, the food. Oh my God, the food. Don\u2019t even start me on the food!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At my birthday party, I brought a lot of Brazilian food like&nbsp;<em>p\u00e3o de queijo&nbsp;<\/em>and&nbsp;<em>coxinha<\/em>. My favourite dish is the classical<em>&nbsp;PF (prato feito)<\/em>&nbsp;that we eat every day. It\u2019s rice and beans with meat, salad,&nbsp;<em>farofa<\/em>, and even fries. Every time I eat these dishes it tastes like home. It brings the nostalgia, and I feel like I step in Brazil for half an hour and then I\u2019m back.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-05-10-at-16.32.26-1024x683.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20\" srcset=\"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-05-10-at-16.32.26-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-05-10-at-16.32.26-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-05-10-at-16.32.26-768x512.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-05-10-at-16.32.26-1536x1025.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/WhatsApp-Image-2025-05-10-at-16.32.26.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Pedro Arruda \/ Credits:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.behance.net\/qaddelina\">Adel\u0117 P\u016bkait\u0117<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>My family always makes a big barbecue on New Year\u2019s Eve. My grandma was born on December 31<sup>st,<\/sup>&nbsp;so it\u2019s a double shot party. There\u2019s loud music and everyone\u2019s dancing and having fun. Then, we unite and pray before midnight comes, and as soon as it comes, we watch the fireworks and the party starts again. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We pray because I think that, in Brazil, it\u2019s a standard to believe in something, even if you don\u2019t have a specific religion. Maybe it\u2019s because we\u2019re more optimistic, but also, we are a very Catholic country, so even when people detach from religion, they don&#8217;t usually become atheists.&nbsp;&nbsp;They just form they&#8217;re own beliefs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In that sense, I was also a big folklore kid. I loved reading books about it. I remember that me and my friends would joke about seeing the scary bathroom blondie, the spirit that appears when you say her name and flush the toilet 3 times. I think stories in general are a big part of Brazilian culture. My first memory of watching a soap opera, for example, is from when I was 5 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you watch the soap operas of Manoel Carlos, you will see people walking in the beaches of Rio, enjoying the beautiful nature with Bossa Nova in the soundtrack. It\u2019s a vibe. So, growing up I had a routine: wake up and get ready to school. After class I would take a shower and watch the soap opera with my family in the living room, followed by the national news broadcaster. Those are things you can\u2019t watch in your room, it\u2019s a communal experience.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s what I love about Brazil, we\u2019re very open and welcoming people, even a little bit limitless, and we have an insatiable way of living. We\u2019re always eager for new people and new experiences that the future holds. We have this desire to live.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But you only realize all the cool things you have at home when you leave. You see that everything that seemed normal, is quite special and unique. Then, you notice that you can\u2019t find that everywhere else you go. But I still feel like all these cultural differences are just the way we\u2019re polished, even though, intrinsically, we all come from the same place as humans.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every time I come back to Brazil, it\u2019s like everything is boiling hot, and it\u2019s not only the weather. I can feel the effervescence. Everywhere you look around, there\u2019s life happening to its fullest.&nbsp;&nbsp; I was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro. I feel that \u2018cariocas\u2019, which is how we call people from my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brazil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135,"href":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/translatingsaudade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}