Last day at Iracambi

I usually hate last days. They are always a hurry up and wait scenario. Wake up, get packed, get everything done you need to, then wait around typically to travel home or to somewhere else. But this last day doesn't feel like a last day. Though I'm leaving Iracambi today, all of my fellow volunteers are coming with me for the first 2 legs of my trip, which makes it a fun and very special last day. We all decided to make a trip out of my leaving, so today all of us are taking the school bus into Rosario da Limeira and then another bus to Muriae, the closest biggest city to here. So this afternoon will be filled with shopping and eating things that aren't beans and rice and hanging out (likely playing cards). Then late tonight I'll hop on a night bus to Rio, wake up at the bus station, get on another bus to Buzios and head to my hotel where my husband will meet me a few hours later. So, seems like in terms of last days, this one won't be so bad.

The final hurrah

My last weekend at Iracambi started in a very interesting way. I was trying to sleep in (which for me is waking up at 7 but not getting out of bed and reading till about 8:30) and all of the sudden I heard something that sounded like a mix between a large cat purring and a motorcycle. As I opened the door to my room, it got louder and when I peered into the bathroom, I found a hummingbird had gotten in but couldn't find its way out. The sound of their wings is quite loud in a small room and it really gave me a bit of a scare. It was trying to get out the bathroom window, but Janet and I cleverly used some mosquito netting and first aid tape as a screen, so it couldn't find a way to escape. So I opened the front door to our cabin and knocked on the door, jingled the keys and eventually it turned my way and flew outside. A very "only at Iracambi" moment.

Later in the day we were introduced to the newest member of the Iracambi family, Thor, a 3 week old boxer. Robin and his daughter Juliette, who is visiting for a week, picked up little Thor on the way back to Iracambi from Rio. He'll join the rest of the motley animal crew - Toffee, the aged boxer who likes to chase people on motorcycles; Mischa, the kitten who purrs constantly and thinks everyone is a scratching post; Peter, Mischa's brother, who always starts fights but never wins them; and the 2 guinea hens who try to come inside the center and I love to chase out.

Saturday night we attended a beer festival in Belisario. We weren't sure what to expect, but figured it would be a fun time. It was amusingly named Octobeerlisario, so we knew there would be some German element to it. Mimi, who is German, found the whole thing really funny, from the enormous German flag hanging over the room, to the menus which were in Portuguese and German. For the price of entry we got 4 beers, which were really pretty tasty - made by a local producer, but typically you can only buy them in the big city, Muriae. We became instant celebrities at the event, with everyone wanting to talk to us, find out where we were from, and invite us to hang out with them - including the guy who ran the brewery, who invited us to come by for a tour. We had been under the impression that there was going to be a jazz band playing, but instead the band played mostly American and English classic rock, with a few Brazilian tunes peppered in. Very fun and random evening.

Dinner with the Monks take 2 - aka Pizza Party

After the last dinner with the monks and friends, we made plans for them to make us pizza. After weeks of beans and rice, this was the best dinner invitation I've ever received and we were all looking forward to it all week. Though there was some hesitation - could they pull off good pizza? The answer was yes, overwhelmingly, outstandingly yes. As usual, dinner started much later than planned, since first we were waiting on someone to arrive with the oil, then someone else with the bread. We had brought the beer and cachaca, so we were fine waiting around and drinking. When finally the pizza-making began, we all jumped in to help out, chopping vegetables, sprinkling cheese, mixing sauce.

The pizzas were all consumed with in minutes of them coming out of the oven and with each empty tray, a new pizza was assembled and then put back in the oven. We could barely finish everything, though we certainly did.

After pizza, there was some leftover cheese and onions which we used to make pao de queijo (not sure if this was planned or spontaneous). I've had this cheesy-bread concoction twice since I've been here and wasn't super impressed, but this one was what I'd been hoping for when I first heard about this dish. It was perfect, and such a perfect night. 

One week to go

In one week I'll be leaving Iracambi and I'm starting to feel nostalgic. Perhaps it's because it's a bit gloomy out and I'm listening to sappy music while working alone in the Center. But I think mainly it's because I'm really going to miss this place. I've never experienced anything quite like it - the people, the place - everything has felt so new and exciting. I'm shocked with how easy it was to fall into this life here with the bugs and the food and the pace of life. The people have definitely been the best part. Everyone is so different and yet we not only get along, I think we actually all like each other and our difference. And with very few distractions out here, we've really gotten to know each other.

So today I'm going to highlight some of the fun and silly things we have done over the last 3 and a half weeks.

This is when Cloves (Carminha's husband) introduced us to local cigarettes, tobacco rolled in corn husks with the addition of something that looked like charcoal which Cloves kept saying "It's natural, don't worry."

Tom tormenting Mischa, one of the 2 kittens. Of course after he did this I had to introduce him to "Hang In There" Cat

There was the night that Janet and I finally found the frog that lives in our bathroom. This is just before it fell into the waste bin next to the toilet.

We've been playing lots of games and this is us playing "Who Am I." I'm really terrible at this game, but I have been given some pretty difficult people like Russel Brand and Jamie Oliver.

We've done a couple of movie nights - though at an NGO people seem to prefer to watch depressing documentaries about the evils going on in the world rather than movies. So I've learned about the methane seeping out of the arctic shelf and how the WWF may not be all they are cracked up to be.

We recently celebrated Jet's birthday. His cake was what we were going to have for breakfast the next day. And I gave him a handful of peanuts as a birthday present.

Yesterday we went to Limeira to pick up some supplies and food. But I quickly learned there's not much to do in Limeira other than play pool and drink beer. And there are only 4 buses a day to/from Iracambi, so there's a lot of down-time. So we played pool and drank beer.

Presentation Day

It's funny, but until Binka came over this morning for our meeting, I hadn't even thought about the presentation I'd be giving. I knew I wanted to take her and the rest of the team through everything I've been working on, but I really hadn't thought of it as this is the BIG presentation, the culmination of my work. Guess that's a good thing.

I did spend much of the weekend finalizing everything. But when this is your office, it's very hard to complain about working over the weekend.

I wanted to make sure I had covered off on all of my deliverables - strategy, segmentation, contact lists, emails, forms, website updates, even logos and merchandise. Sadly my go-to designers weren't available to help me out on the logo, so thought I'd try something myself and if it flopped, I'd have time this week to get some actual design help.
So this morning we sat down - Binka, Janet, Imran and Binka's friend who is in town visiting, who also happens to have worked in Universities handling development (not a bad sounding board at all). I took them first through the strategy - what is our goal, who is our audience, what does our audience want, how do we talk about the existing education program, how should we talk about it, what should we say to who. This led to some good conversations and insights about audience motivation, from differing points of view around the table - Binka knowing her donors, her friend understanding university administrators, Janet and Imran understanding the student perspective. Then I took them through my executions and my idea for a scholarship program to offset the student costs. Everyone seemed really pleased with the email templates I put together, the ideas for social outreach and they even liked my logos. I'd say it was a pretty successful meeting.

I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted. Weeks 1 and 2 were full of uncertainty about what I was doing here and personal doubt, week 3 it finally started to come together but I was worried I wouldn't have enough time to do it all, and now in week 4 I just need to put the finishing touches on everything and hand it all off in a nice, organized package. WOW! What a ride.

Dinner in a thunderstorm with the Franciscan Monks

Thursday night, Imran made plans for us to make dinner for the Franciscan Monks who live near by. They actually live in Robin and Binka's first house when they moved here from Washington DC to start their farm. Imran wanted to cook them Indian food, since it's pretty rare to find it in these parts. That also means it's difficult to find ingredients for a proper curry. But between Limeira and Muriae, we gathered what we could and set to cooking.

The Monks are an interesting group - it seems they are focused much more on community and living in harmony with the land than with religion. They are a bit of a rowdy, fun bunch. Aside from them, we also had a local organic farmer at dinner, a farmer/Tae Kwon Do instructor, several children running around and Toffee, Binka and Robin's dog who followed us to the Monk's house from Iracambi.

We made 2 vegetable curries, one which we needed to use black beans instead of chickpeas since Gui wasn't able to get back from Muriae with them in time for dinner due to the thunderstorms. Surprisingly, everything turned out really tasty, though several of the locals thought the dishes were a bit spicy - spice is not very common in these parts.

There was also a very interesting game that was played during the evening - try to make sure the glasses of beer don't go empty - initiated, of course, by the monks. And they were very good at the game. The second game was every time the lights went out due to the thunderstorm, we all shouted "Oopa!"

Though my Portuguese isn't very good, I managed to follow most of the conversations and even was able to get some thoughts out myself. Everyone really enjoyed themselves and we were invited to do it again this week when the Monks are going to make us pizza. Very excited for that!

Week 3 - Why does time move faster the closer you are to a deadline?

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.