Araguari- Final days :-(

Tomorrow is our last full day in Brazil. We will all be sad to leave this wonderful country full of many great, new friends. Last couple of days in Araguari, today we visited two beautiful waterfalls and Teri was eaten alive by the mosquitos, which looked like small birds and injected her full of itchy poison :-( Kevin will have to fill everyone in on what happened to him. We visited a hydroelectric plant, city hall, and city library and archives yesterday. And we had our final Rotary presentation. The Araguari clubs held their June party early so we could partake. A regular hoedown.

Week 3

Tomorrow is our last day in Araxá and we will be in Patrocinio before noon. This last week has been a busy one, and has gone by faster than the first two weeks. Since the last update we have been to Caldas Novas, Uberlandia, and Araxá. Caldas Novas was great. We only had one important appointment, and that was the presentation for the Rotary District 4770 Conference. The presentation went really well, everyone did a great job! I was so proud of everyone. The rest of our time there was spent with the Julio, our coordinator, Johnny Boy, Josney and the rest of our friends, and relaxing, either in our rooms or out by the thermal pools. Caldas Novas was a great city and we had a very enjoyable time there.
From Caldas Novas we went to Uberlandia. Uberlandia is an incredible city! We all had great families that added a lot to our experience here. The most impressive thing about Uberlandia is the Praia (beach) Club. It was huge. It was probably about half of mile long or more and had a river that ran through it. There were buildings on both sides of the river and man made waterfalls in the middle of the river. They had everything! Lots of swimming pools (indoor and out), lots of volleyball courts, soccer courts, basketball, dancing, martial arts, restaurants, and a great gym to workout. I also had the best homemade hot fudge over ice cream, made by Andre.
Right now we are in Araxá. Araxá is a smaller town that is more peaceful. There is not as much poverty here, so there is hardly any crime. The highlight of Araxá is definately the Grande Hotel. This hotel is huge, and very elaborate. Is is known for its baths. They do baths with sulfer water, mud water, radioactive water, wine in the water, honey, and more. We tried one of the baths and I though it was great. It was very relaxing for me and helped to loosen up some of the knots in my back. This is a quick overview of another amazing week in Brazil, hopefully I will have more time to write soon.
- Kevin

2 week mark

We have reached the 2 week mark and we are now 2 days from being in Brazil longer than we have left. This experience has been amazing for us, definately a once in a lifetime experience. These exchange programs from Rotary are incredible. We have been in Jataí since Sunday and today is our last day here. Jataí has been so great to us. The first day we were here, all of the Rotarians threw us a part at one of the Rotarian's farm. They had a TV reporter there documenting the whole thing and then they interviewed each of us. These towns have gone out of their way to make us feel like celebreties. We also met the mayof Jataí and were interviewed on live radio.
Here we have seen many of the schools including the university campuses, the english schools, and a school for underpriviledged kids. The school for underpriviledged kids was amazing, they made us hand made presents and cooked us an amazing lunch. Like many countries in central and south america, there used to be a lot of children that were on the corners begging for food, washing windows, or doing tricks such as fire blowing. When they described the way it used to be, it sounded alot like Guatemala is, and it made me sad. I remember kids in Guatemala that used to drink gasoline in order to do the fire blowing trick and then used the money to sniff glue, then when they got older they would move from glue to drugs and usually ended up in prison or dead. They said that it used to be like that here in Jataí as well, but then they created programs like this school, and now they have very few problems with the children. The kids here go to school either in the morning or the afternoon, then the wealthier children go to private during the other part of the day to learn english, music or dance. This is where the underpriviledged kids were getting into trouble. So this school is a governement program that takes these kids and teaches them art, dance, music, and other extra-curricular activities.
Another thing that has impressed me about Jataí and Brazil is that they are a self-sufficient country. They do not depend on any other country for energy, gas, ethonol, food, or water. They grow a lot of sugar cane, which is a better product than corn for making ethanol and energy. Their technology in these areas are very advanced and impressive.
We are all enjoying our time here, and everyone is making quick improvements with the language. This has been such an amazing experience and I look forward to all the new areas that we are going to visit. Each area has done something special to add to our trip.

Kevin

Day 7 Frutal

The team went to sites around Frutal with Meire and Josney to see all the amazing work Rotary Frutal has done, a high school where we were greeted with great enthuiasim, a primary school, and an old folks home. Back to our hosts homes for lunch, yum. And afternoon, vocational visits. Tim and Teri went to the universidade minas gerais and spend time with faculty in our fields, good conversations about our jobs - similiarities and differences. Isabella and Geovana took us to two schools in Frutal, a primary school and school for students with disabilities. Teri was impressed the second had 2 pscyhologists, an SLP, occupational therapist, social worker, nurse, and DENTIST on staff, and a special teacher for the blind students. This school served students ages 3-4 months to 65 years old. A quiet night with our host families, at least so far.

Did someone say celebrity?

Lifestyles of the not-so-rich but very famous in Jatai

Frutal

Today was a great day, we were treated like celebrities. My day started when I read about us in the paper. We were on the front page right in the center of the newspaper was a picture of our team. It was great! Our first stop was a house that was donated to the government as a church and a music center where the children can learn to play various instruments. From there we visited the "Down town." We went to a store where everything was made here in the city, then to a store where everything has been exported from Europe and Asia. The highlight of the downtown was definately the Serveteria, the ice cream shop.

The next place they took us was to meet the mayor, assitant mayor and the city councel president. After talking to them for an hour or so, we took photos and I was interviewed for the radio, which aired today. Then we went back to our houses and ate lunch. My lunch was really good, it was close to "Fritanga." It was rice and beans matrimonio (married, because I mixed them together), cheese and tortillias (different from quesadilla, but really good), meat, bananas fritos, and of course more ice cream to finish out the meal right.

After lunch we went the old City Hall that is now a museum and library, we took a tour of Josney's college, and then went the the Catholic church Matriz. At 8:00 we had another presentation, that went good. It was a fun day, and everybody knew who we were, everywhere we went, because of the newspaper and radio.

Kevin

Day 4 & 5 Uberaba, Day 6 Frutal

We are a little behind on the blog but spending so much wonderful time with our hosts, we dobn´t want to spend in on the computer.

Monday the team visited different vocational sites, Teri went to the Federal University of Minas Gerais, I think with Heitor. And the hospital affiliated with it. Off to lunch and met Donaldo and his daughter. Then to Colegio de Jose Ferriro (sp), the wonderfully impressive school where Anna and Marcelo teach. Wow, we have never seen a school like it. Back to the ExpoZebu to meet with the director of community development for MG. And a quiet night at the shopping mall drinking and talking to friends.

Tuesday we all had a tour of the Museu of Xico Xavier the famous medium, very interesting. A quick visit to a bell foundry. And lunch at a churrascaria. Mike and Teri visited Heitor´s program, Cantanto Dominincanos, a high school program for at-risk teens. They asked many great questions. That night we presented to the Rotary Club and celebrated with them Mother~s Day and a farewell dinner for us. We had the opportunity to thank our wonderful new family in Uberaba.

Weds. Short drive to Frutal. A visit to a cervejeria and some samples, ;-) Tonight we present to one of the Rotary Clubs of Frutal.

Day 3 Uberaba

Another beautiful day. We all met at the mercado where there is live music on Sunday. Then we had an excursion to Peiropolis (sp?) with a small dinosaur museum and education center. We enjoyed a long lunch with Juliano, Anna, Hector, Sylvana, and Isabella, enjoying comida fazendo (traditional farm food). Teri enjoyed the okra. Then back to Uberaba to partake in the national pasttime, fotebol!!!! Our team tied but still advanced to the next round. Otimo! And finally we went to the shopping center but did not shop, ate and drank and met several friends of our hosts.

DAY 2

Oi Gente!

It was a beautiful day here in Uberaba, MG. We visited the mercado and sampled local cheese, cafe, fruit, etc. Our hosts took us to a small family-owned cachaca farm and distillery. The farm and landscape was beautiful and the cachaca was muito deliciouso. We learned alot about sugar cane farming and harvesting. We also visited the cattle exposition where some cows sell for nearly $1 million. Everything is great!

Day 1 in Brazil

After a long flight that took almost 20 hours, we arrived in Uberlandia, Brazil. A group of Rotarians were waiting for us with a huge sign that said "Bem-vindo (Welcome) USA GSE Team." We right away felt very important and happy to not only be there, but to be celebrated. We all piled into a van and drove for another hour until we arrived in Uberaba. There we separated and went with our host families. Brazil is a beautiful place and we are excited to be here!

GSE 4770 visits NIU

Our friends from GSE 4770 visited NIU Career Services on Monday. We had a wonderful potluck and took them on a tour of some of our more historic buildings.

District Conference - April 25

Here is the team at the 6420 District Conference in Moline, IL where we met the GSE 4770 team.

Group photo

Our Team - Mike, Kim, Tim, Teri, Kevin

Here I am visiting my sponsoring club, DeKalb/Sycamore Kishwaukee Sunrise Club with my colleague/buddy Phyll who recommended me for the GSE.

Oi Everyone invited by Teri

This is where we hope to keep you up to date on our exciting trip to Brazil. We leave April 30th for Uberlandia, Minas Gerais. More posts to come.

Skype

Oi GSE buddies, if you are going to try to keep in contact with friends and loved ones while we are gone and not interested in buying a cell phone you can get started checking out Skype. My BFF is off to Korea in a couple weeks and we got me set up so we can chat. If you don't know, Skype allows you to make free computer to computer calls, video calls if you have a webcam, and chat online. You and the person who you are trying to contact have to have Skype on your computer, check it out, it's fun. http://www.skype.com/ No, I don't own Skype stock. It is much more popular abroad than in the states and most internet cafes will have it and headsets to use. If you sign up, let me know so we can practice. ;-)

Free Brazilian PodClass website and other websites

The site one of the students in my class recommended was www.brazilianpodcast.com
There are several, over 150 free, short lessons. You can listen from the website or download them.

Also, I've been keeping a list of useful websites on my Delicious site. If you would like to check them out, please feel free - http://delicious.com/taschmidgall/Brazil