Update April 14

Monday, April 14
VOCATIONAL VISITS
GSE Team seperates and goes on individual site visits. I went to several historic sites and one preservation project, the Redemption theatre Recovery Project. The Brazilian government does not fund historic preservation projects a great deal and the historic sites that are surviving do so on a very minimal budget. Many communities struggle with this and often grants and other means of funding are pursued, similar to the US.
After lunch we went and visited the Sete Lagaos mayor, who was very welcoming to his city. We also did a site visit to a community center that the Sete Lagoas Rotarians funded to help a poor community with senior programs, health programs, and other vocational trainings needed. This is a great community asset and the Sete Lagoas Rotarians should be very proud of their efforts.

Tuesday, April 15
Team head to Paraopeba to visit the only Textile Museum in Brazil. The museum was very nice and out guide was extremely knowledgeable of the factory and it´s long history. After the museum we went to BBQ; and I found my favorite meat, chicken wrapped in bacon yuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmm!
Visited the Slate Benefaction Industry, where we toured a slate factory were able to get a glimpse of how they´re getting the slate we seem to see everywhere. Large blades slice the slate
into squares and then the layers are split by hand, every piece! We took a tour of a national forest area. Spiders with the leg span of a palm laced a canopy above us as we walked to their nursery area and the road was laden with chunks of crystal. Very interesting geology here. We ended the night visiting a college. \we were given a little tour of the grounds and had the oppertunity to see a corpse being utilized in the biology-science department. Very Interesting, many firsts for us!

Wednesday, April 16th
Today we went to Pedro Leopoldo for the day. The majority of the morning was spent at the RC of Pedro Leopoldo where a handfull of individuals that work in the community spoke to us about their respective vocations and power point slides. They covered recycling, reforestation, agricultural planning, etc. We had a very nice lunch at their club... did somebody say we love rice and beans! We had the help of Flavio Lima Batista, former GSE team member to Alabama. Thank you for the translations during the entire day! we did visit the meat quality control laboratories, unfortunately our time there was cut a little short due to running a bit behind schedule. that evening we returned to the Rotary Club of Pedro Leopoldo for a night meeting, including dinner and our presentations in Portuguese. Their members mentioned to us that we were the first group to give our presentations in Portuguese so plus for us!

Brazil Update April 11;14th

Tuesday, april 22

I have not been able to write in this BLOG for a very long time so I am just going to try and give a very brief synopsis of the two weeks we have spent in Brazil.

Friday, April 11
arrived in Sau Paolo and were greeting by two very friendly Rotarians the two Paulos, who were nice enough to take us to the Municipal Mercado and the Museum of Modern Art for a very delicious lunch.

Friday Night, april 11
Arrived at Confins Airport outside of Belo Horizonte and meet all of our host families from Sete Lagaos. My host family was Raquel and Eduardo, very nice and patient with my complete lack of Portugese.

Saturday, APRIL 12
DAY OF REST hung out by the pool and relaxed.

Sunday, April 13
Futebol
The team and Rotarians went to a football game, or soccer game in Belo Horizonte. Athletico Vs. Tupi. Braizilians are intense futebol fans , probably the most energetic group I have seen at a sporting event.

A Week to Go!

Hey fellow GSE Team mates we have just a week until we take off to Brazil! I think the fact that I am leaving for five weeks is finally hitting me. But I think that we have prepared well for the journey and I look forward to all of the new experiences that await us! Cheers!

Nine Days to Go!

I just looked at the calendar and realized that the GSE Team only has nine days to go! I am really excited to travel to Brazil, get to know my teammates better, meet many Rotarians and experience a new culture.