Há tanto tempo que eu deixei vocês. Fui chorando de saudade.... (EN)
Citation: Roupa Nova: A viagem
Translation: It has been a long time since I left you. I was crying because I miss you.
Hey guys, I am sorry that I didn't write for a long time. I was, how to say, 'occupied'. Kkkkkk (Hahahaha). The persons who read the Brazilian news, understand the reference. For the persons who don't, I will try to explain shortly. But I have to say, it is a very complex situation.
Recently a lot of changes took place in the Brazilian government. The president (Dilma Rousseff) was deposed and a new leader (Michel Temer) was selected by the government itself (not by the people). In december 2015 impeachments agains Rousseff were applied. After a long process (that took about 9 months) the federal senate decided to remove Dilma Rousseff from her position. A new president had to be selected and this happened to be Michel Temer. To make a long story short, the new government created a law. This law (PEC 241 or PEC 55) writes that the governmental expences for education and health will stay the same amount for the next 20 years, starting from 2018.
This caused a lot of uproar among many students, teachers and many others, as you can imagine. A form of protesting is the occupation of the departments within the university. This has been going on for several weeks. The occupation of a building means that the students prevent anybody from entering the building. So there are no classes, no tests or whatsoever. Until last week almost every building on the campus was occupied against PEC 241. This Friday there was a meeting of all the important universities and they decided to go on a general strike. So, right now the campus is a little bit empty. I do not know how long this strike will last, maybe two weeks but we are talking about one or two months. We will see. For now I just continue working (what is possible, fortunately) and I will see you again in the Netherlands.
Tchau!!
PS: This description of the political situation is very, very, very shallow. If you are interested in knowing more about this, visit: http://www2.senado.leg.br/bdsf/item/id/521801
The website is in Portuguese (of course) but Google Translate has proven to be a good friend here, so good luck :)