After the first 2 weeks went by a snail's pace, this week has flown by. Part of it has to do with the fact that we've had the WiFi go out several time (electricity too) so it makes working on parts of my project difficult. The other part has to do with the fact that now that I know exactly what I need to accomplish, I feel like I don't have enough time to get it all done. But I'll do my best.
On Monday, when the WiFi went down, we all helped out with nursery duties. This is us breaking open pods to harvest seeds to use in the nursery.
I also spent some time filling up bags with dirt and compost for the new seedling. I really enjoy these types of breaks, when I get to take part in what most people come to Iracambi for. When the WiFi was working, I spent my time organizing a list of Binka's University contacts that we'll be reaching out to for the Iracambi Strong program. As I was doing this, I was realizing again how similar working for an NGO is (well, at least this one) to working in advertising with clients. I can't even tell you how many times the information that came in from a client was poorly organized or incomplete and I was told by my account team "It may be easier if you just adjust it yourself, since the client probably will take a long time getting back to us, or just not understand what you need." So, in this case, I re-organized the list, added in additional, useful information and after 2 days, felt like I've got the details I need for the next step in the process.
Tuesday was similar to Monday - drizzly with intermittent WiFi. When it was working, we all huddled in the Center to get everything requiring internet access done. And when it was off...
we played cards and had a few caipirinhas.
The rain lifted on Wednesday and the heat came back. I've always been most productive in the mornings, and here is no exception. I usually get most of my work done before lunch and then try to get a few more things accomplished after lunch, but then I peter out, typically due to the heat. At least here, when I peter out, I can climb down to a waterfall and go swimming (wish we could somehow implement this at Wieden).
And now just a small note about food. Food has been really great here. It's homemade, healthy, a bit on the salty side, but probably much better than what I usually eat at home. The only issue, is that it's very repetitive. Dinner and lunch both include beans and rice, a side dish and things for a salad. To mix things us a bit, we add one or more of the salad items to the beans and rice, sometimes even mixing in the side dish with it. This gives us some sense of variety. We also all like to discuss what we wish we were eating instead of beans and rice, which tends to make the beans and rice concoctions go down easier. But Wednesday night was a big night for us. Aside from the beans and rice we had spiral pasta with a light tomato-ish sauce and french fries...and there was ketchup. We were all beside ourselves with joy.
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