As time goes by: two months in Brazil

Hello everyone!

The last post was about our trip to Salvador and right after we came back to Vicosa, I was invited to go to capital no. 4.
After Rio de Janeiro (capital of Rio de Janeiro) (which only was a stopover to go to Belo Horizonte), Belo Horizonte (capital of Minas Gerais) itself, and Salvador (capital of Bahia) we would go to Vítoria (capital of Espírito Santo) the next weekend. We were going to visit some friends and old housemates there.

Together with Berginho, Tales and André we were going there by car. The trip was very nice and I was able to see a lot, especially of the state of Minas Gerais, which used to exist of forests completely. It was cut during the colonisation because during that time, the word 'environment' didn't exist at all. Minas Gerais is very hilly and most of the land is used for agriculture. During the trip we saw many coffee plantations and I was told that Minas produces one of the best types of coffee in the world.



When we arrived in Vítoria we met Carolina, Catherine, Sávio and Heron and we had a nice evening with lots of laughter.
The next day we went for a city trip by car and visited a rocky beach to see the view. In the evening we went to a party, which had something new: not just for the amazing view at the beach but also for the electric music.





The next day we got up rather early to leave for Vicosa again. All in all it was a long travel for such a short trip, but the next day everyone had to go to university again. Even though it was a short trip, I can say that Vítoria is a beautiful city!



Then about my internship: I booked some progress even though I had this delay that I talked about previously. Most of the work so far existed of a literature study. 

About the Troca (de Saberes): I'm understanding more about the meaning of this event. It's not just an Exchange of Knowledge (Troca de Saberes) during the Farmers' week at UFV. It's been an exchange of knowledge every meeting so far, since everybody has his or her input during the meetings. The only thing is that it's hard to understand the topics when you're learning Portuguese. There are many difficult and abstract topics to be discussed. I would compare it to reading a very difficult, technical text in my own language. You have to be really focussed or you won't know what you're reading actually. Sometimes, some of the other Brazilian participants even say: "What have I been reading here?" You can imagine that it's difficult for me to understand what's being discussed. When you're learning Portuguese it's easier to start with something like 'Nijntje' (or 'Miffy' in English)... Just to give you an idea. Last week we had a meeting in the middle terrain of UFV, to present what's Agroecology about.



Next week on May 3rd, I will be giving a presentation about any topic I want. Since one of the conditions of our internships at HAS University is an assignment related to Health & Safety, I'm going to implement this (partially) in the presentation. Since my classmates who came here last year already discussed literally everything about the Dutch culture, I will be presenting about the European Union. I know, these seem to be tough subjects (and probably they are), but I will give it my best to make it interesting.

In the next post, you'll read how the presentation went.

See you!

Luc

Lucie in the Sky with Samba!

Dear Reader,

Hereby I'm sharing another blog post!
This post is mainly about my trip to Salvador with my comrades, but first I want to tell you something about a previous experience, the day before take-off.



As I told you in my previous post, my internship will partially be a Life Cycle Assessment of bamboo. Wednesday morning at 5:00h one week ago, with two other students, known via the organising of Troca de Saberes: Fernanda and Daniel, we went to Assentamento Denis Gonçalves in Goianá, Minas Gerais. A 2.5-hour trip by car. With 4,000 ha of land, this used to be the biggest coffee farm in Brazil. It has been closed for decades and now it is the home place of several family farms. One of the practices nowadays, is bamboo farming. We went there to help the farmers with the processing of bamboo and the building of the oven, to get rid of the green resin on the bamboo sticks. 

In the afternoon, we went to the forests to gather more bamboo sticks. All in all this was a very nice day in which I took a good look at farms in Brazil

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The day ended a little excited though. I didn't know that the people I drove with to Goianá from Viçosa, planned to sleep there to finish the jobs the other day. Now we had to find a way to get me in Viçosa, to catch the bus to go to Belo Horizonte the next day at 8:00, for our trip to Salvador da Bahia. Eventually we managed to stop a bus at 22:00h. At 00:30h I was at home in Viçosa, where a nice party was going on. The next morning, Gustavo, Elisabeth and me took the bus to Belo Horizonte.

After spending the afternoon in Belo Horizonte, we took our flight to Salvador in the evening, where our trip was heading to. After a 1.5 hour flight, we landed in Salvador, Brazil's first capital. One hour later we arrived in Praia do Forte, where we met Silvana, Luca and Luca. The next day we spent in Praia do Forte, where we went surfing, great! It is a beautiful place. In the evening we took off for Salvador.

My first impression of Salvador was that it's a modern city with all its new cars, roads, traffic lights, and buildings. But on the other end, there was a lot of poverty nearby. This contrast was very well visible in the whole city, it's very noticeable.

In Salvador we visited some beaches and did some sightseeing. The biggest place of interest probably is Pelourinho, which used to be an important colonial square in the centre of the former capital. It used to be the place where slaves were traded and also punished. Today it is a center of Afro-Brazilian culture (and a tourist destination). Due to its history, Salvador has a lot of inhabitants with African ancestry.

Now is the time I've come to the title of this post. One evening we went to Pelourinho where we were searching for a place to eat. We ended up in a nice cozy eatery, where a band was playing Samba. I didn't know people really go dancing during the dinner, but at that place they did. Then you can't sit still on your own... So we got up too and that's how we became a part of the party. Samba isn't difficult, it's just very fast. But as a foreigner, you can't really fail, as long as you're participating. It was a great evening!

One day, I decided to go to see the city by myself. I started by going to Arena Fonte Nova, one of the twelve venues (play cities) of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Arena Fonte Nova was the location of the legendary 5-1 victory of the Netherlands against Spain in better days. It was also the place of the goalkeeper change versus Costa Rica. After this, I decided to go to Mercado Modelo, another famous tourist spot. It's a market in a nice building where shirts and other souvenirs are sold. From there, I walked to Feira São Joaquim, a market (fair), where mainly agricultural products are traded. During my walk I saw a lot of poverty again, not what I imagined beforehand. But it was very visible during the whole trip.



The penultimate day we went to Morro de São Paulo, on the island Tinharé, about 100 km south of Salvador. This is also a very important place in the history of Brazil. In the mid-16th century, the Portuguese founded a port here to supply the ships from and to Europe and to have a base in the interior of Brazil. Soon the island became a true center for various sea battles, which took place between the Portuguese, Dutch, French and pirates from the region. After the city was completely destroyed by the Dutch in the beginning of the 17th century, the Portuguese built a fort, which helped them to keep the city in Portuguese hands. Nowadays, it is a tourist spot with nice beaches. I think it is a little bit too touristy. But still, it was really beautiful.



During our last day, we went to Pelourinho again, where we saw a group of people playing Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art, that combines elements of dance, acrobatics and music. Some capoeiristas nodded to us to come and play with them. So that's what we did. Another nice experience!



One time, when we went back home in the night, I saw a group of 20 people playing football on a pitch at 1:30h! Those crazy Brazilians! 😂 I completely agree with them, because during the day it's way too warm to play football. When it's 30 °C with an even higher feeling temperature and a very powerful sun, it's not the time to play football.



As you can imagine, it was a very amusing trip to Salvador! Now it's back to work again.



Thanks for reading again and take care!

Luc