It's no secret that I love Cleveland. I love Ohio. I love where I grew up. Would I recommend it to someone going to the States for the first time? Unlikely. But I love it. It's the city and state that raised me.
And I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Give it a little Google search and you'll find lots of articles about things that only Clevelanders will understand, or things that Clevelanders love to hate about Cleveland, or why Clevelanders love Cleveland so darn much.
Do you know who else loves Cleveland? (Former) Cleveland Cavalier Anderson Varejão.
That's right. 5'6" me teacher and 6'11" basketball player him have more in common than I originally thought. Not only do we both have a strange affinity for Cleveland, but we both love to hold to Brazilian flag above our heads, we both attended the NBA Global Games in 2015 (one of us as a player and one of us as a spectator), both of us have lived in countries that have required us to speak English/ Spanish/ Portuguese.
I may never walk down the street and have random people screaming my name and running up to me (though that is what happens when I see my students in the grocery store), and our salaries may never be comparable, but Varejão and I love the same cities. And as he says in his good-bye letter to Cleveland fans, "Home is where the heart is, and my heart will always be in Cleveland." Lar é onde o coração está. E meu coração sempre estará em Cleveland.
In a similar way to how Brazil holds a special place in my heart, Cleveland has also become a part of me.
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