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

.

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

Birthday & Clearness

Hello everyone and welcome to another blog post!

It's been more than a month now that I've started this adventure in Brazil. I think it has been the most eventful month of my - in the meantime - 21 year life.

Because that was the topic I ended my last blog post with: my birthday.


On Saturday morning, March 17th, after a short night, I went to CTA (Centro de Tecnologias Alternativas da Zona da Mata) with some students of the working group on agroforestry, named Grupo Apeti de Agroflorestas. We got there by bike and I think it was the most special bicycle tour of my life. We cycled through a beautiful place of rainforest: Recanto das Cigarras (literally translated as "Cicadas' Corner", or "Hoek van de Cicaden" in Dutch). It's named this way because you can hear the cidadas very loudly. I would compare this sound with the sound of crickets (in Dutch: krekelgeluid), but much louder. During the bike trip we also heard some monkeys... Pretty awesome to start your birthday this way.


When we arrived at CTA, we worked on the surrounding forest, we gathered dead and overflowing plant material and spread them on top of the bare ground, to increase the organic matter of the top layer. We also had a taste of mangoes and passion fruit. Amazing!

After the same beautiful trip back home during midday, we had lunch and relaxed a bit: everybody was tired.

In the evening, just before going to a Calourada, a nice surprise awaited me when my housemates got me a real Brazilian cake and salgadinhos (snacks).

It was a birthday I'll never forget! Thanks everybody!

Last week I got to know the groups of the Agroecology department at UFV: GAO (Group of Agroecology and organic farming), SAUIPE (Group of Integral Health in Permaculture) and Grupo Apeti de Agroflorestas (Group of Agroforestry). I'm participating with these groups, but I mustn't forget my other assignments too.

One of them is participating in the organisation of 'Troca de Saberes' (In English: Exchange of Knowledge), which will take place during the annual and national 'Farmer's week' in mid July at UFV. With a group of students and some professors, there's a weekly meeting in which the event will be build up bit by bit. In smaller groups of students, different themes are taken care of.

I'm also expected to carry out a research study, which will be a life-cycle assessment on the production of bamboo. Tomorrow we are going to a small bamboo farm, to see what it takes to produce bamboo.

Something else: Forró (Brazilian music and dance style). Yes, you've read it correctly: Dance style.

Many people told me I should try, so I thought: let's give it a go! In the picture, you can see Micael and me in the dance room. Micael is a teacher of Forró and he helped me with my inscription. I'm going to take this opportunity to give it my best shot!

Last Sunday we went to play football with some housemates and friends. It was hard for the gringo to deal with the heat, but in the end, it was nice to play. When we went home, we came across two capybaras!


Another nice prospect: Coming Thursday we're going to Salvador de Bahia until the following Wednesday. Coming thursday and friday are holidays in Brazil due to Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Together with Luca, Luca, Elisabeth, Silvana and Gustavo we're going for this citytrip. We (six people, five nationalities) are all looking forward to this trip a lot!

In the next post I will write about our travel to Salvador de Bahia.

Thanks for reading and take care!

Luc

Getting used to the Brazilian vibe

Hello everyone and welcome to my second blogpost already! 😮

It has been almost three weeks for the second blogpost to arrive, but there have been some reasons for this huge delay:

First of all my laptop's keyboard had some issues which got bigger after my first blogpost. After I had brought it to a computer store three times without results, I decided to buy a laptop three days ago, which I'm using now. The only thing is that Windows and Microsoft Office are completely in Portuguese, lucky me because I need to learn Portuguese... and FAST.

Also I bought myself a bicycle, but I had to go back three times already because it had some issues. It's hard to find a good and not too expensive bike.

I had some more challenges that I had to fight myself through, but now it's time for the good things that happened.

To start with: All housemates have arrived safely: Matheus (aka Cebolinha), Douglas (Douginha) and Valentim (Vaval). Bruno (BB), Matheus (Berginho) and me (Gringo) were already here. A total of 6 fellas who get along very well. We already found out that translating jokes from Dutch to English or from Portuguese to English doesn't work out. The sense is just lost.

And now, back to school!





So, my project will be at the Agroecology department. It will have more than one aspect. The first part is organising a national event of agroecology in Belo Horizonte, which is called Encontro Nacional de Agroecologia (ENA). With a group of students and professors, the event is organised by arranging everything in weekly meetings (which are in Portuguese, so very hard to understand). These meetings also have a spiritual character, which I think can be good for your personal development.

The second part is to be determined in the following two weeks. It could be another assignment related to agroecology, or it's going to be a chain research related to for example the coffee or dairy industry, which are huge in Brazil.

For both assignments it is essential that I develop my level of Portuguese quickly.

Coming Monday I will start with Portuguese classes, twice a week at the department of lettres.

In other words: There's a lot of work to be done and things to clarified.





Via the group of ambassadors, a tour through the whole university terrain was organised. We got a nice view of all the beauty of UFV.

In the meantime, I did some groceries in the Dutch way...





As Vínicius said, it's an opportunity to change the use of all the plastic, I think it's possible.

I experienced many more things of the Brazilian culture which surprised me a lot. Sometimes it made me laugh, like the habbit to light up your car's safety lights to let everybody (authorisations included) know that you're not parking at that spot for a long time. We use these blue parking cards, safety lights can last for more than a day on your car's battery! 😂.

But on the other side, sometimes it made me feel shocked, like the murder on the Brazilian politician Marielle Franco, yesterday. There are many problems to be solved here, starting with the political system. And of what I read about it, Marielle Franco could have been taking the lead with this. Another attack on democracy... Which is making the rest of us into cowards because now we don't dare to say anything anymore. I think it's brave to step up against those who are harmful to your country. I sincerely hope that one day, democracy in Brazil will be just as strong as it is in the Netherlands. RIP Marielle Franco

Even though it's not easy, back to something positive...

My first Calourada (Freshman party).



A nice party where you pay for your entrance and an unlimited amount of drinks





Like it does almost every day until the rain season ends at the end of this month, it also rained during the party... So I cleaned my shoes for the second time that day, I had no idea what was about to happen during this so called "Calourada"...😂

Last weekend we had a party at our house to celebrate the birthdays of Cebolinha, Camila and me. The party was nice and it ended beautifully, with my new friends we made some music on the street. It was another great experience!



Yesterday morning, Anibal and me headed for the federal police in Juiz de Fora (4 hours and 20 minutes by bus), because of arranging our legal stay, which you have to do within 30 days of your arrival. The day before yesterday I got a flu, so I felt bad. Yesterday was tough, but we made it. I was happy to catch some sleep after the same trip home: 4 hours and 20 minutes. Today I'm feeling better, I hope to be back to 100% before my birthday this weekend.

Probably I have forgotten many things that happened, but they will be discussed in the next posts.

One of them just comes up: Don't ever try to put on some Dutch or European music on a party in Brazil, Brazilians just don't change their vibe: Funk. If you put on some nice house/DJ, electronic, rock, pop... Name it... You might as well turn off the power of the whole building. It will result in the same effect: People will stand still: the party will be killed. Fortunately, we got it up and running again.

I want to say one last Thank You to all new people I met during my first three weeks here. You really made me feel at home. Muito Obrigado!!

Thank you for reading again and the next post will be following soon!

Luc

Departure & Arrival

Dear reader,

Welcome to my first blog post about my internship in Brazil!
This post has a high chance of becoming the longest one, so lay down your stuff and take a seat... :)

I will start with the beginning: Why have I chosen for Brazil?
I heard so many beautiful stories from my classmates who did their internship here at the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV) last year: Bart, Katinka and Lucas. Then I got the oppurtunity to come here too via Living Lab Biobased Brazil (LLBB), an organisation that brings Brazilian and Dutch students together to participate in exchange programmes about the biobased economy. The decision was made with full commitment: I was going to cross European borders for the first time in my life!

After choosing for Brazil, a period of arranging and planning began. I will save you from these boring, though important procedures. You and me, we'll both fall asleep ;). I can only tell you that I had to go to the Brazilian consulate in Rotterdam three times. From Brazil I got a lot of help from my ambassador Ana. After she arranged my room, one of my then known housemates Bruno helped me out as well. This way, I had no reason to worry about anything at all. Thank you Ana and Bruno!

In the meantime, I planned to study some Portuguese. However, since this is something that is postponed easily, not a lot of Portuguese was learned... Something I have to make up while being here.
After everything was arranged, it was time for celebrating carnaval and saying goodbyes to friends and family. It was very nice to have friends and family come over wishing me the best on my last weekend in the Netherlands. Thanks again via this way!

Wednesday morning, February 21
My Dad, Mom and sister brought me to Schiphol, putting me on the plane to Rio de Janeiro. The time had come to say goodbye for the last time. Some in advance unexpectedly tears flew right before I took off. Keeping yourself busy with getting checked-in is the best remedy in this case, so that's what I did.

The flight to Rio de Janeiro was pretty okay and when I arrived I had to check in for my flight to Belo Horizonte, which was about to take off three hours after my arrival in Rio. But first I had to change some clothes because we had flown across the equator, which meant the temperature had risen from -3 to at least 25 °C (in the evening), I'm not saying anything with this, I just wish you a lot of pleasure in the freezing cold back home! ;-D

When I arrived in Belo Horizonte, Vinícius' family: Bianca, Ana Flavia and Eduardo picked me up at the airport. Vinícius is taking part in the Living Lab Biobased Brazil programme as well. I met him during the annual LLBB dinner, where he offered me to have me picked up at the airport of Belo Horizonte by his family. The next day at 5:30, Nanci and Ana Flavia brought me to the bus station for the final chapter of my journey from Venray to Viçosa. During the car trip to the bus station I experienced something rather shocking... I already noticed the traffic is, softly said, pretty bad: People driving on the left side of the road all the time, taking over from the right side (which is also the wrong side ;)). So on the highway, there was this car right in front of us that wanted to go to the left lane. He didn't check his mirrors nor blind spot and as a result, he drove into a motor driver that came from his left side, driving about 70 km/h. A hard hit... When we arrived at the bus station, Ana Flavia and Nanci helped me getting on the right bus to Viçosa. Thanks again Vinícius and family!

During the bus trip, I saw many other differences, like poverty in the city of Belo Horizonte: Many people sleeping on the streets. I knew I could come across these kind of situations, but it's still not nice to see. When we got out of the city, I noticed the differences in vegetation between Europe and South America. Like bamboo plants ten times thicker than the ones in our backyard at home. During the bus trip, I saw many favelas as well. I was now able to confirm this beautiful country still has some important challenges ahead.

When I arrived in Viçosa 4.5 hours later, Bruno picked me up and lead the way to my new home. At home I met Matheus, Bruno's brother, and Hanníbal from Paraguay, who's staying here temporarily. The other three housemates will arrive in the coming days. The house is nice. It's old, but spacious and everything is working fine.

The four of us drank something and we took off for a lunch (together with Bárbara, also UFV ambassador) and a small tour through the city of Viçosa and the University's terrain, which is absolutely beautiful!

Going out for lunch or dinner in Brazil means paying for the weight on your plate. Later we had some icecream and guess what? The icecream was put on a scale too... Another cultural aspect is meeting new people or friends on the street: At home we just say "Hello" or "Good morning". In Brazil, people hug each other all the time.

Then there is the use of plastic bags. We went to the supermarket and everything was put in a seperate bag.

We had a laugh about it: Saving a plastic bag from every store in the city. But of course, it is a serious problem. I guess this one can be placed in the list of cultural differences as well. If there's one thing that's hard to tackle, it's the cultural related challenge. Not many Brazilians speak English, so when we were speaking English, everyone's looking at us, hilarious! I had to buy some towels and bed sheets in a linen shop, because only 5 hours before my father, mother, sister and me took off for Schiphol, I still had to get rid of 7 of the 30 kg! I'm sorry for that again...

When we returned to our house, I found six beautiful cards from my home front hidden in my luggage (I was already busy unpacking my luggage for the sixth attempt probably), of which I was allowed to open two. After we had dinner, we went to a bar. We enjoyed some Brahma beer, which is pretty soft (fits me well in a certain way ;)) and we listened to some Brazilian Funk, of which the lyrics are way crazier than our Dutch Lil' Kleine and Boef.

Today was more a relaxing day... Writing this post, listening to music, playing Bruno's guitar with Bruno and fixing Matheus closet together with Matheus.

In the next post, I will write something about the content of my internship
Untill then, thanks for reading and take care!

Luc