A quiet weekend

This weekend was mostly a relaxing one. There was a holiday on Monday (Children's Day) which apparently was a week long around here, so it shut down the buses to Limeira as well as pretty much everything in the town. So it would have taken a lot of effort to try to get out of here on Friday night to travel anywhere in the area (and the buses don't run on the weekends either). So we stuck it out at Iracambi, which is pretty normal for me now that I'm 2 weeks in and haven't really seen much beyond the Iracambi grounds.

Saturday was hot. I mean really hot. Like that one day in August in New York that you close the shades and crank up the air-conditioner and don't go outside. No such luck here, so we took it easy most of the day. Surprisingly the WiFi signal was really good in the morning, so I thought I'd do some quick fixes to the Iracambi website. The WiFi is very hit or miss here, so you need to take advantage when you can.

After lunch, Toni, the nursery manager invited Cliff, Jet (our newest volunteer from Australia) and I up to his home. Outside of having the greenest thumbs I've ever seen, Toni is also an amazing painter (with a studio I'm envious of), and apparently teaches acting classes as well. Even though he doesn't speak much English, and our Portuguese is quite limited, we had a wonderful afternoon - discussing religion, philosophy, homeopathy and happiness over homemade lemonade.

There was a drastic change in the weather on Sunday. It had rained over night and we awoke to overcast skies, fog over the mountain tops and much cooler weather.

It's funny, when it's drizzling and overcast here it's almost the same feeling as in London - the cold sticks to you due to the humidity and makes you feel much colder than the temperature should dictate. So all day I was piled in layers of clothes and still couldn't get warm. Even the cats were huddled together for warmth.

But in the afternoon, Imran got us digging holes in the nursery so we can build more tables to hold more seedlings, which got us warmed up pretty quickly.

He also bribed us with alcohol, so hole-digging was followed by wine and cards, followed by dinner, which was followed by some Gabriellas (which are some sort of hot drink that includes cinnamon and cachaca) and a few rounds of the "Who am I" game - which when played with a bunch of young idealists at an NGO you will almost certainly be given some sort of an activist or political figure.

Week 2 - Still trying to figure it all out

As to be predicted, the discovery period of this project has extended well into week 2 when we should be getting into strategy and execution. There is just so much to learn about this place. One issue that keeps coming up is that since so many volunteer hands have touched so many aspects of this place, with limited handover between them, we're sifting through different styles of documents, written by people with very different skills over several years. I think it's doing Janet's head in a bit trying to figure out budgets and expenses, and I'm doing my best to help her with that as well. 

 

The one point of consistency through all of this is Binka, who is a font knowledge and contacts and stories. Janet and I typically have 2 or 3 meeting with her a week which start with a laid out agenda and end 3 hours later with more information than we know what to do with. This has been the trouble with this week - there is so much to do, and so much that's interconnected here that it's very difficult not to try to tackle it all. But after a good chat with Philippa on Tuesday, I realized that I couldn't take it all on or else I'd likely get nowhere by the end of my placement here. 

There are smaller initiatives I am trying to do outside of my focus on the Iracambi Strong education program. Simple things like making a big calendar for the Center so we can see the comings and goings of people here and designate certain days for group tasks. I'm also working with Janet and Imran to get a more consistent number of volunteers coming here by getting some smaller initiatives up and running again, like water monitoring, recording animal sightings and nursery programs. And I've set an agenda for a meeting we're having on Friday to talk through the realities of the new Forest Restoration project, so hopefully we can keep the meeting short, sweet and productive (but this is Brazil).

On the animal sighting front, it was an exciting week at Iracambi. We spotted what we think were two Macaco Prego monkeys, a type of Capuchin monkey, on a tall tree between two of our cabins. This is apparently a very uncommon sighting especially so close to Iracambi. Following that, the cleaning lady found the possum that lives in the ceiling of the Center in the stove in a very perturbed state since it was hissing at everyone. 

Wednesday night was the big dinner meeting with Leandro (aka the Muriqui Monkey man). He is one of the leading experts down here on the Muriqui Monkey and he also is the main point-person for the Iracambi Strong program - helping to organize the course and bring in the professors. Over dinner we nailed down the course structure, the overall teaching philosophy and how we can get the course in place for January. Binka is heading to Rio with a pamphlet Janet and I worked on with her to try to sell the January course to students of the International Schools of South America. Know her, she'll probably get to many people to sign on than we can handle.

Yesterday, Janet and I decided to take the hike to Binka's house for meeting twice in the same day. I think it's around a 2 mile hike and it was probably in the 90s yesterday. But it's just nice to get out and get some exercise and look at the beautiful countryside even if we end up completely drenched in sweat.  We also have some great talks on our walks about absolutely everything. It's very nice to have here her to help with the work, to bounce ideas off of her and just to have her as a good friend.

Following our meetings with Binka, she took us to the waterfall by her house to go swimming, since it was unbearably hot in the afternoon. These pictures don't do the place justice at all. If only all 3 hours meetings could end this way, with you and the client relaxing in a cold pool beneath a waterfall. The last meeting itself was a really good one too - just the project reset we all needed, to realign on the project objective and finally define what I should leave this place with when I go. Now I just need to get to work and focus.

When life gives you lemons...

...make lemonade. But the saying has been altered a bit at Iracambi. Here, when the WiFi is out and there's a tree that gives you limes, make caipirinhas. And that's what we did. Tom played bartender and mixed up some fantastic caipirinhas yesterday afternoon when the WiFi was out and we were unable to continue working without it.

With drinks in hand, we also welcomed 2 new volunteers to Iracambi who showed up a few days early - Mimi from Germany and Cliff from Alaska. Mixed up more drinks and had ourselves a little welcoming party.

The mountain house

This weekend we decided to camp out at Iracambi's Mountain House. I had been there by car so realized it was not named that by accident. Since we were hiking up to the Mountain House this time..and I do mean "up"...we decided to go after lunch on Saturday (aka the hottest time of day) so we only needed to bring enough food for 2 meals. We also decided to forego things like blankets for beer and cachaça. This was my first hike here and I did warn everyone in advance that I'm no good with "uphill" since I come from New York where the biggest hill I climb on a daily basis is the 1 flight of stairs up to my apartment.

It was a beautiful hike, first on the edge of a Eucalyptus plantation then alongside farmland and cow pastures. After much starting and stopping, due to me, we did make it to the Mountain House.

Aside from just camping out, we did go up there with a job to do - make the place presentable for the bird watchers who are coming to Iracambi next weekend. So after we caught our breath a bit, we set to work sweeping and unpacking hammocks and moving building supplies out of the house (for Robin to pick up in the Land Rover).

Since we only had one broom, I tried my best MacGyver impression and made this lovely broom. It worked pretty well until the bristles started to fall out and cause an even bigger mess.

As it started to get dark, we realized that since we had no electricity we should hang up the hammocks while it was still light out. Sadly, we are not knot-experts. For some reason people remembered I said I grew up sailing and looked to me to get the hammocks in place. I did my best to remember how to make a bowline, but don't think my knots were quite up to snuff. I did recall how to make slipknots and thought this would be good to tie around the metal hooks, but during the night the knots continued to slip and most of us ended up almost on the floor. This is what happens when a New Yorker is asked to perform outdoorsy tasks.

One thing we were all good at was making a fire and I think we ended up burning through all of the wood we could find.

Though the beer and cachaça warmed us temporarily, the lack of blankets and the wind coming down from the mountains made it a very cold and sleepless night. However, the beer and cachaça did make the cold and our hammocks hitting the floor all night far more enjoyable and full of lots of laughter.

The way things are done

I'm learning quickly that the way things work in Brazil, or at least in this little area between Belisario and Limeira, is not what I'm used to. I come from a world of contracts and meetings and deadlines. This world seems to work fine without any of those.

For example, before I come up with a communications plan for Iracambi's education program, I actually need to help them set the program up again. Minor set-back, but I'm rolling with it. It then took 3 days to find out who was in charge of setting up the program before, who handled the budgets, who brought in the teachers and set up the courses (some of this information I'm still trying to hunt down). Then came the talk of "are we sure these people will want to do this again starting in January." The response was "Of course" but I remained skeptical. So I asked that we talk to the former organizer. We invited him to come to dinner last night, but he was too busy building his house, so we drove up to his house this morning to talk to him. When we got there, he was working on his roof and slightly reluctant to come down and talk since he had so much work to do. The rainy season is coming. When we discussed him coming back to do the program next year and to organize it all, his response was "Of course." Guess I was wrong to doubt. A quick chat, a hug and we were off all feeling pleased that we had nailed him down. No contracts, no discussion of next steps, no follow-up meeting scheduled. But at this point, it seems like it will all work out.

Now on to the next tasks of finding students for the program and interest from one of the local schools.

Getting down to business

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind and it's only Wednesday morning. Monday started with a 3 hour conversation with Philippa from TIE which included myself, Binka (head of the Iracambi NGO), Imran and Janet. Little did they know they'd all be put in the hot-seat by Philippa regarding my project, their projects and even the future of Iracambi. During our discussion, we formalized my objectives and my deliverables and put together a schedule for the next four weeks.

The objective of my placement is to come up with a way to communicate the Iracambi Strong program and work with the team to get it up and running for 2016. The larger objective is to figure out how to communicate the different programs and aims of the NGO in a simple, direct way for the various people these programs will touch - the local community, the students, the researcher and the donors. As I'm writing this down, this seems like a pretty pursuit. But I'm going to try to start small and then see how far I can take it in the 4 weeks I'm here.

The last two days have been spent fact finding - contacting past students who were involved in the program, talking a lot with the group about their overall goals for the project and how it fits into the larger goals for the NGO, even going through finances.

Outside of this, I've also been lending my social media skills to help with a donation campaign that's happening today. Interesting note: scheduling Facebook posts and Tweets from where we are needs to be flexible, since the Wi-Fi is not always working too well. Our 9am Facebook post had to go out yesterday around 1pm since we couldn't actually get on Facebook.  Será o que será.

Also been working on a full website audit for Iracambi and working with the web master in Zimbabwe to start making some immediate updates. Also, trying not to forget to get up from my laptop to roam around and really experience this place and all it has to offer. Yesterday, we took a quick hike to see where the water we drink comes from.

And just a little bit about my new normal:

• Bugs are everywhere and there's nothing you can do about them. This is their home, not yours.
• Cats don't care that you're allergic to them, so just get over it
• Sometimes cold showers can actually warm you up
• Stream water beats out New York tap water
• Afternoon naps are not only acceptable, they are mandatory
• Brazilian wine is not the greatest - at least what we can get locally

First weekend at Iracambi

Somehow I feel like I've already been here for several weeks...in a good way. Day 1, Saturday, Robin, one of the founders of Iracambi took us on a tour of the grounds. Aside from the NGO and Research Center, Binka and Robin run a farm as well. Robin showed us areas where over the years they were able to reforest the land - some which worked well and some which were still struggling. We learned about the local farmers and how they were trying to get them to grow coffee in a more sustainable way.

The "We" I keep referring too is the group of volunteers I'm living with. There's Janet from the US, who just finished her degree in Accounting and Economic. There's Imran, from the UK, who has worked with several NGOs and is working as the new Community Coordinator at Iracambi. There's Tom, from Belgium, who is working on his internship, but hasn't quite figured out what he'll be focusing on. There is also Gui, who works at Iracambi. He is originally from São Paulo but found his calling out here working with the local communities of Limeira and Belisario, as well as handling most things at Iracambi, including the student programs.


Day 2 started bright and early at 6:15am when we packed back into Robin's Land Rover again and headed to the town of Belisario. The community there organized an Eco-walk, in part against the mining company that is trying to get the farmers to sell the mining rights to their land. There were speeches given by several members of the community, including Gui and we all hiked 4km waving white flags and singing to a local organic farm.  Mass was then held and we all ate together - some of the best beans and rice I've ever had (probably all of the pork fat). Afterward, we walked back to the town where we shared several beers while sitting in one of the town squares while discussing the downfall of city living and politics.