Brazil
Menda, Susana

SUSANA: I'm Susana Menda and I from Brazil and I am leaving with my husband in 2005. What I want to talk about is literacy. Since I was a very, very little kid my mother gave me nice books - that's my first memory about childhood. My mother, as you know, at this time we did not have television, no internet, computers, nothing of the other stuff. The first time I could connect words was when I read the newspaper. My father subscribed and the name of the newspaper was the Mayor of People. I was four years old, I was not in school but at this moment I could draw the letters and say, "Oh my God, this is a word." That was the first time I connected words. Maybe because of that I am a reader, I read whatever is in my hands and today you have internet but I don't like to go to the internet for reading. Reading for me is picking up a piece of paper and I am a subscriber because I love newspapers, it is a kind of mania of my family and reading newspapers really matters. Right now I am graduating at UALR, I graduated in Brazil some time ago and I have graduated here at the UALR. I have not time, really have very little time and I am not reading any book. Books I am reading are scarce because mainly I am giving my graduation recital and have things to study, I am studying German and I try to read in German - a language that I didn't know. But the newspaper is made for me. At 5:30 I'll be at the YMCA and the best moment in my day is when I go to the YMCA I pick up a coffee, I am addicted to coffee, and I pick up the newspaper and I am going to see what is going on in the world. In front of me I have a TV but really I am not interested in TV, I don't pay too much attention to it. My attention is on newspapers, my contact is with newspapers and books. I think that's all I have to tell you about my experience.