I am really proud to be Brazilian... USA gave me the opportunity to have a better life, but Brazil live in my heart and would like to share a little bit more about my home town, with people who loves Brazil as much as I do, and are curious about southern Brazil:
Located in Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil, Santa Cruz do Sul is about 1,200 kilometers south of São Paulo, and has a population of nearly 90,000 inhabitants in the city and about 12,000 in the rural area.
Santa Cruz, the Portuguese word for holy cross, started as a German immigration center in 1849, and today one can still find people speaking German in the countryside. The city tends to be slightly different than the typical images that foreigners have of Brazil. In a century and a half it has become an interesting blend of German culture with the local gaucho culture that sprouted from the earlier Portuguese and Spanish settlements in this native South Americans' land known as pampas.
Because of the European immigration and due to a strong presence of multinational companies as well as efficient language teaching, the percentage of multilingual people is slightly higher than other regions in Brazil.
Rather prosperous and safe compared to other Brazilian cities, Santa Cruz is 100 miles (160 km) to the west of Porto Alegre, the largest city of the state, its capital, and the nearest commercial airport. The main economic activity of Santa Cruz is field production, processing and exporting of leaf tobacco. Rio Pardo Valley, the region of which Santa Cruz is the main center, is Brazil's largest tobacco-producing area, contributing to Brazil's status as the world's largest exporter of tobacco. During harvest time, the tobacco industry employs more than 9,000 workers to process 380,000 tons of leaf tobacco. There is also a cigarette factory, which generates a significant amount of tax money. Other industries are clothing, corn seed production, food, machinery, and rubber.
Santa Cruz do Sul is also becoming an important educational center. It is home to UNISC (University of Santa Cruz - Total enrollment: 5,200 - Faculty: 260), and S&K-ESL, an independent language institute running a unique Brazilian Language and Culture Program, and maintaining English Made in Brazil, an educational project on Internet and the most influential ESL website in Brazil. S&K is associated with ESL organizations in the USA, Canada and England, and is the sponsor of this page.
To know more about Soth Brazil please go to:
http://www.sk.com.br/sk-scs.html
Thank you!
Luci Edwards
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