Gramado and surroundings

Hi there!

Just a short update of the last days we've spent in Gramado. We arrived here at wednesday and had a relaxing afternoon. Just walking around, eating and having fun. Gramado is a small village that looks like the villages in Austria and Switserland, only then in a warmer climate. We ended that day with a cheese fondue, meat fondue and for dessert a chocolate fondue. Eating is a big part of our schedule of the day.

Gramado

Thursday we went to Taquara and Parobe and visited a university, shoe factory Bibi and a factory where they metalize plastic items for shoes, bags, etc. That evening we presented ourselves and the Netherlands at a joint meeting of the two Rotary Clubs.

At friday we met Irina. She is the coordinator of our exchange in Brazil and she took us to a wonderful waterfall in Canela! In the afternoon we visited organizations connected to our professions, such as a school, a sports club, communication agency and the local government. At the school in Canela there were at that moment no classes Geography unfortunately, but I met two teachers and we had a discussion about the school system in Brazil. We agreed that there is a need for improving the quality of the teachers and students. Especially in the public schools. Furthermore, they wanted to know a lot about The Netherlands and Europe. As a present I received a school book from one of the teachers. I had a good time, so thank you!

Waterfall Caracol

After the vocational part we visited a social project where they give poor children in Canela the opportunity to play music, play football and have extra reading lessons. The project is sponsored by Rotary Club Canela.

Today was a relaxing day. We stayed in Gramado and we visited the local fire department. Wouter climbed up the pole in stead of going down... After that, we went to the Zoo, a beautiful place with animals from all over Brazil. In the afternoon we went to the house of Santa Claus. In summer time, when he doesn't have to work, he lives here. It was really strange to learn that Santa lives in the south of Brazil and not on the North pole!

Tomorrow we will go to Novo Hamburgo. Tonight we will have a goodbye party with our host families with a BBQ.

I hope I can upload some pictures soon.

Greetz, Jo-Anne

Leaving Canoas and exploring the countryside

Hello everyone, sorry you had to wait a bit longer for an update. We have been sooooo busy and an extensive internet session wasn´t always part of the programme. But I´ll update you up untill this moment.

The last few days with our families in Canoas have been pretty relaxing and fun. Last Friday, we had a free day after an intensive first week and most of us went to the beach in Tramandai with our families. As soon as we got there, we had to go swim in the Atlantic Ocean to sober up. We had been to one of the most exclusive clubs in Porto Alegre called Café Segredo the night before and slept even less that the nights before ;p
After completely burning up in the sunshine that day, we happily returned home for a good night sleep so we would be prepared for an original Gaucho BBQ at an original Fazenda at the lake. We were under the inpression that we had been having BBQ´s all week, but this hadn´t yet been the real thing.......but at least now we know what to expect when the local people are talking about ´a BBQ´ ;)

Following a fantastic first week with our host families came a somewhat emotional goodbye. We didn´t really want to leave, and they didn´t really want us to leave. But even good things seem to come to an end, so with a tear in our eye and all the love in our hearts, we left for the country side for the city of Bom Principio.

Before I continue our story, I would like to thank all the wonderful people we met in Canoas on behalf of the entire team.....so here goes: THANK YOU PEOPLE OF CANOAS FOR ALL THE GREAT MOMENTS, WE MISS YOU!!!!!!!!

Our journey continues towards the country side. Bom Principio is a small town that originally was founded by German immigrants around 1826. All the people have German surnames, but not everybody can speak German anymore. The people from the local Rotary club are very friendly, kind and helpful to us. After a very nice lunch and a rest in the afternoon we discovered what the local youth call partying. For all the Dutch people reading; there are ´Tukkers´ in Brazil that go ´Brommers Kiek´n´ and party at ´Schuurfeesten´ :D

The following days were extremely interesting, we were able to visit many places that had quite some historical value for the area we were in. We even visited an isolated settlement of German Brazilians that had supported themselves from the moment they arrived almost 200 years ago. After a wonderful traditional lunch, we went for a small hike in the Brazilian ´jungle´. We ate some of the fruits, Jo-Anne was attacked by an unidentified insect (she´s ok and stopped scratching after 2 days ;p) and we fought of some crocodiles and snakes ;)

The second day we were guided by two Rotary clubs, Ivoti in the morning and Estância Velha in the afternoon, and they must have studied our wish list very well because the programme had the most educational visits. A schnaps brewery and a technical high school for the art of leather treatment. As a result, we now know how to make our own favourite alcoholic drink and leather shoes, purses and jackets......what else do we need?!! It was a big and pleasant surprise to meet a Brazilian that spoke Dutch, he had lived in The Netherlands for 10 years but decided to go back a couple of years ago to set up his own company, I think he must have got tired of the rain all the time :)

To finish this part of our story, we would like to thank the people of Bom Principio for their hospitality and kindness, we can´t wait to see you all at the conference in Tramandai!!

At this moment we have spent some days in the next little town called Gramado, even higher up in the mountains. This small town is a very touristic place that is an exact copy of an Southern Tiroler village (only warmer) and is the hometown of Santa Claus whenever it isn´t Christmas time. In our next update we will tell you all about it.

See you in a couple of days, byebye,

Michael

Photo: Our host families and us together before our responsible clubbing night in Porto Alegre

Photo: Wouter together with the funniest man of Porto Alegre, Jairo

Impressions of the first week

Our first week in Brazil was great; a good mix of visits to interesting companies, social projects sponsored by Rotary and a lot of fun with our host families. Every evening we met up at one of the host families, where they prepared a great meal, typically from this region. The nights usually ended with us dancing and singing all together. Photo: our team leader enjoying the bbq with Jairo and his girl friend.

The program of this week was taken care of by Rotary clubs in the cities Cachoerinha, Canoas and Gravatai. Three quite large cities surrounding Porto Alegre. In Cachoerinha (which means little waterfall) we visited an agricultural school on land the size of 42 ha. The director of the school told as a lot about there way of teaching, translated by a member of the Rotaract club. The children learn how to conserve nature while working on agricultural projects. The tour on their school property showed us how they cultivate rice . We visited IRGA a research institute on rice production. 60 % of the rice production in Brazil takes place in this state, Rio Grande do Sul.

In the center of Cachoerinha we visted the local chamber of commerce, 400 commercial organizations are listed. The chamber assists them on marketing and sales. At the Rotary club we presented ourselves briefly, after a really nice lunch. The next activity on the program was bringing a visit to the enterprise Renova, a large cleaning company for industrial towels, covers for airplane chairs, etc. The chief commercial officer guided us and answered our questions about the production proces, clients and how they handle chemical waste. Their sustainable production proces takes care of dealing with waste to minimize harming the environment. Our day ended by visiting a private university, build up from a small kindergarten. A few teachers guided us through their new building. In Brazil it is common to work during the day and study in the evening, this told us a lot about how ambitious young Brazilians are!

The next day our host club Canoas Industrial took care of our program. In the morning we visited three social projects of Rotary. A shelter for teenage mothers, a project that provides the basics needs for poor people in one of the poor neighboorhoods and the local hospital. The ambulance is sponsored by this Rotary club. At lunch time we were received at the Rotary meeting, where we told the members about the Netherlands. To our surprise they even arranged to play our national anthem. After lunch we visited the huge refinary of PetroBras, the largest oil company of Brazil. The completely automated system to control the gas production proces was really impressive.

The local news paper of Canoas was our next stop. Together with the president of the Rotary club they interviewed us about our impressions of Rio Grande do Sul and the GSE goals. The next we were famous in Canoas :-)

To be continued...

Emma