Post #9: Jeitinho brasileiro

If there is one vocabulary word that might be worth learning about Brazil, it might be jeitinho. Literally translated, it is a diminutive of the word way. In reality, it is a high frequency word and is used to describe accomplishing something by bending the rules or coloring outside of the lines. I have listened to some interesting podcasts (to practice Portuguese) on this topic and also heard my American-Brazilian Portuguese teachers rant about this concept, mostly in a negative way. I realize that this is probably an annoying cultural feature that contributes to opaqueness and fraud. However, it appears to me that jeitinho is resourcefulness and creativity when facing endless bureaucracy or obstacles.

Our first maneuvering with the concept came with opening accounts for phones and Internet. In Brazil, you must have a CPF to open accounts (a uniquely identifying number that is linked to your identity and paying taxes). We went through the process of getting them in the U.S. and were ready for this. However, if you have a "new" CPF, businesses will not accept it because you have no history of credit. Kind of a Catch 22 as you have to be given credit to have it... A woman named Erika who sets up Internet for the embassy community claimed that her computer could not accept our CPF and so we could not set up an account (despite the fact that other newcomers set one up with her the smae week!) but she found a way. Our Internet hookup is under the name of the person who lived in our apartment before our predecessor. Supposedly we can change it once we "exist." We'll see how that works. However, for now, we have our service through a resourceful jeitinho.