2015 – journalism no longer offers professional security; the children do not go to school yet. Frankfurt journalist Andreas Nöthen and his wife Wiebke decide to leave Germany with their family for a few years. You live in Rio de Janeiro from 2016-2019, where you experience the Olympic Games and Jair Bolsonaro’s rise to the presidency. Wiebke Nöthen worked as a teacher at a German school, Andreas as a foreign correspondent. The children went to school in Brazil – and quickly learned Portuguese while their father struggled. For three years he wrote a blog about his life in Rio – everyday life, school, festivals, visiting relatives, sights, trips in the country and throughout South America. The blog is now available as a book and offers a fascinating insight into everyday life that is similar to that in Europe, but somehow very different. Improvisation is more important in Brazil than in Germany, but it usually succeeds (unlike in Germany ). Then Brazil is a completely normal country, not even particularly dangerous for a normal citizen. Nevertheless, the military is stationed everywhere, and the residential complexes resemble fortresses; Violence dwells in the slums, but at the same time the housemaids of the better circles who live in a storeroom come from there. American-style modern neighborhoods are designed entirely for automobiles, although you can’t get around by car in Rio; Brazilians love their wonderful beaches – and litter them. It is a country full of contradictions. However, the author also offers numerous loving insights into property management and telephone contracts, paying bills in cash at the kiosk, the neglected treatment of the country’s rich tourist potential or the impossibility of having a real Christmas tree in the southern hemisphere in midsummer to get, let alone elect the German Bundestag by postal vote. Conclusion: You grow into a small local community surprisingly quickly, not just in the German community abroad. Since his return to Germany, the author has been living and working again as a journalist in the Frankfurt area – naturally with a focus on Brazil. After a few years in Germany, the family is now moving abroad again.
