I am heading to Brazil this week to help set up our newest Trust & Safety team. Throughout the week, I will be training, building relationships, and eating as much pão de queijo as possible!
As I begin the long journey to Curitiba, I feel nostalgic. It was nearly 15 years ago that I first visited Brazil to set up a team to provide support and moderation for our Brazilian Club Penguin players. My first real exposure to Brazilian culture was through an incredible community of Brazilian kids who faithfully translated English in-game content into Portuguese every week so that the other Brazilian kids, who couldn't understand English, could stay connected with everything we were doing.
As we were trying to decide where to localise our first non-English version of Club Penguin, we received this image from our players in Brazil:
It would have been no minor feat to have coordinated the ~50 players for this image. This is, remember, before the days of Discord and Kick. But nevertheless, they pulled it off, and we were deeply humbled by this incredible community of players.
Over the course of my time at Disney, I would spend several months in São Paulo with our team there. On the day I first arrived, we were invited to dinner and told to meet at this nearby restaurant. They neglected to tell us exactly when to meet there, so we arrived at 6:30p, thinking that South American dinner is typically a little later than the 5p dinner we were used to in small-town Canada. The place didn't even open until 10p, and food was served after 11p! To tie us over, because the restaurant staff felt bad for us, they introduced us to pão de queijo!
After the first week of training, they took us to this absolutely bonkers rollercoaster park called Hopi Hari. The rollercoasters were kinda crazy, but I think the drive back to our hotel from Hopi Hari was quite possibly the scariest ride I've ever been on!
Side note: driving in São Paulo is not for the faint of heart!
The team we built in São Paulo was incredible, and my love for Brazilian culture was cemented by that group of people. Every lunch, we'd head to a nearby mall filled with buffet-style restaurants, and the team would have us in stitches with their stories, or perhaps their ability to make any story sound way more exciting! They were warm, hospitable, and joyful! We were fortunate to have such an incredible team caring for our Brazilian players.
Now, here I am again, about to set up a new team for a new set of players for a new set of games, and I am filled with excitement about how these next two weeks, and the Brazilians that I will be working with, will inevitably impact my life once again!