Sunday April 30 Update

April 28-29: From Indiana to Paraná

“Hurry up and wait” best describes the trip from Indiana to Paraná.

For me, Doug, the trip started from Goshen at 7:15 am with Sharon taking me to Warsaw to pick up a rented minivan from Avis at 8:00 and then picking up Kirsten, Justin, and Lisa at the Aboite Branch of the ACPL. By shortly after 11:00 am, we arrived at the Indianapolis Airport where we met Roz.

After a quick check-in with Delta, we ate lunch and waited for our Comair flight at 1:51 pm to New York—Kennedy. Our original plan was to head over the next terminal to TAM to get checked in, see if we could improve our center section seats, for Roz to see if she could change her return date, and then hang out at the Delta Crown Room until our flight left at 8:00 pm.

That didn’t work out since once we left the Delta Terminal, we could not return without a Delta boarding pass. We spent a hour or two in the Crown Room and Doug and Roz went over to TAM around 5:30 to work on the seats and make Roz’s changes (neither one happened).

Even then, the line to check in was quite long so we waited for that and then called the others to come over and get in line. They got there after 6:30 pm and the wait to check in was about an hour, putting us close to departure. Fortunately, the line for security went quickly and we were onboard by 7:40pm.

We were not able to get out of the center section (seating on the Airbus was 2-4-2). Lisa and Doug took the middle seats and we were off for the long flight, scheduled to arrive at 6:30 am in São Paulo.

We arrived at 7:00 am with over two hours to make our 9:15 am TAM connection to Londrina. Our bags had been checked through, but we knew that Guarulhos could take a long time to clear immigration and customs at time. We were fortunate and that went quickly. Several of us changed currency in the airport (got a terrible rate!) and then we needed to take our luggage to the TAM re-check counter. No fear—we had checked our bags all the way through and it should be quick, right? That line took about an hour and we were close to missing our flight. Once we got checked in, the agent said, “Upstairs, Gate 1, Now!” and we were off with at least five minutes to spare. Even then the flight left about 15 minutes late.

Great flight to Londrina with an intermediate stop in Curitiba, and arrived right on time.

We had planned to take time in the São Paulo airport to change into our official uniform, brush our teeth, and make a decent first impression. That delay in rechecking our bags took its toll, so we looked less than fresh but we had our blazers on!) as we met the inbound GSE leader Luis Octavio da Costa, District 4710 Governor Alvaro Claudio Brochado, and Governor-Elect Oswaldo Fávaro who came into the baggage claim area. Upon exiting, we were welcomed with applause and met the rest of the delegation with the welcome banner ready for picture-taking.

Each team member met his or her host family and loaded up the cars and headed to Arapongas, our host city for our first week. I and my two carry-on size bags had no problems, but it appeared that Kirsten and Roz shared a ride and hardly had enough room.

My first host family, Amaury Gomes and Luzia Poliselli, welcomed me, introduced me to their family, provided a nice lunch, allowed me time to unpack, rest a while, and get cleaned up. Amaury and Luzia have a home created for entertaining and we enjoyed a nice dinner around 8:30 that lasted until late, sitting around and chatting with their friends.

I think the favorite topics throughout the world are politics, the economy, and sports (at least with the men folk). Made it to bed just after midnight and slept well, despite coming down with a cold.


Sunday, April 30—A Day of Rest

After breakfast, Amaury and his son-in-law, took me to see his son-in-law’s home across the street and then a tour of the city. Arapongas is a city of about 100,000 residents and has grown by around 40,000 in the last 20 years. There many fine homes, including Amaury’s, as well as some older ones. The city was founded about 60 years ago. Everything except the Sunday market was closed today for Sunday and will be closed again tomorrow for a national holiday, Labor Day.

After an afternoon of rest, evening plans call for the team and host families to meet for orientation in the home of the President of District 4710 GSE/IGE Luis Octavio da Costa.

Northern Indiana GSE Team

Meet your 2006 Team: L to R: Lisa Worrell, Justin Brugger, Doug Risser, Roz Leeck, Kirsten Weaver

Brazil Information

This is information on Brazil and the area we will visit as shared by our
host team.


Summarized information on Brazil, Paraná and our Rotary.

Brazil is located in South America and it was a former Portuguese colony. It became independent in 1822.

Brazil occupies nearly 50% of the South American continent and has an area of 8,511,965 sq.km. It is the fifth largest country in the world with a population of over 170 million inhabitants, out of which 63% are under the age of 29.


There are three basic racial sources for the Brazilian people. To the original inhabitants (American Indians) were added successive waves of Europeans (Portuguese, Italians, Spanish, Germans, Poles, Russians) and Africans. The racial mixing went on as Brazil began, at the end of the 19th century to receive increasing numbers of immigrants from all over the world. Portugal remained the single most important source of migrants, with Italy second, followed by Lebanon. In the first half of the 20th century, due to war or economic pressures, sizable contingents of immigrants came to Brazil from parts of western, central and eastern Europe. There was also a trend of Japanese migration from 1908 onwards and today Brazilians of Japanese descent are the largest such group outside Japan.

Brazil is a democratic country and it guarantees absolute freedom of religion. Most of the Brazilians are Christians, predominantly Roman Catholics. The official language is Portuguese. Brazil holds democratic elections for president, senators, representatives, state governors and legislators, mayors and municipal counselors. Brazil is the world leader in electronic online voting. (100 million voters)

Around 58% of Brazil is covered with forests, which include the largest rain forest in the world, located in the Amazon River basin, 22% pasture, 6% crops and 14% other use. The country has eight river systems, which carry approximately 20% of the world’s fresh water.
Brazil is known to possess extremely rich mineral deposits and produces 90% of the world’s
supply of gems, such as diamonds, aquamarines, topazes, amethysts, tourmalines and emeralds.

Here is a list of Brazil’s main products: cars, tractors, motor bikes, bicycles, aircraft, soybeans, rice, beans, wheat, other cereals, coffee, cocoa, tea, cotton, oranges, apples, mangoes, pineapple, bananas, grapes, cashew, other fruits, nuts, beef, milk, wine, rum-cachaça, beer, whisky, household appliances, hydroelectric power engines, iron ore, manganese, nickel, orange juice, phosphates, platinum, processed food, quartz crystals, rubber, shoes, silver, steel, sugar, textiles, timber, furniture, tin, titanium, uranium and zinc.

Ninety percent of the country is within the tropical zone but more than 60% of the people live in areas where altitude, sea winds, or cold polar fronts moderate the temperature. There are five climatic regions in Brazil: equatorial, tropical, semi-arid, highland tropical and subtropical. In the southern Brazilian cities, in the winter, the temperature can fall below freezing and frost can occur with some frequency.

Brazil has many festivals but the most impressive is the carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro that lasts two days. It is one of the most extraordinary shows on earth. Brazil has a beautiful landscape, with approximately 7.000 kms of coastline with lovely beaches and sunshine all the year round. About 20 million Brazilians, in the summer, go to its beaches to enjoy the sun and the sea. Brazil has poor people and poor areas, but at the same time the country has many areas which are well developed with excellent houses, modern buildings and skyscrapers, hospitals, schools, universities, hotels, restaurants, clubs, resorts, highways, airways and institutions. Brazil has many big cities and Sao Paulo( about 11 million inhabitants) and Rio de Janeiro (about 6 million inhabitants) are the two biggest. The country has very good professionals in every area. There are excellent doctors, professors, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, architects and so forth. Brazilians are also good in several kinds of sports but they are most outstanding in soccer and the country has been the champion of the World Cup 5 times. One of the main features of the Brazilian people is the mixing of the races and the harmony and total integration with which all people of different ethnic backgrounds live together. Brazilian people are warm, fun loving, care free, and friendly.

Our state is Parana, and it is located in the south of Brazil next to Sao Paulo State. The total area of our state is 199,554 square kilometers. Parana is a very beautiful state with a lot of greenery, farms, unspoiled islands, a huge coastal mountain range, some mysterious sandstone formations, wonderful coastline with beautiful beaches, the biggest hydroelectric plant in the world and has one of the wonders of the universe which is IGUAÇU FALLS. Our history was built by the people who came from all over the world, predominantly from Europe, to cultivate the land until it yielded coffee, wheat, soybean, cotton etc…. Soon the original settlements turned into today’s big cities like Curitiba our capital, with a population of around 1,600,000 inhabitants and LONDRINA, which is in our district 4710 with a population of about 500,000 inhabitants. Our economy today is well diversified with well-developed agriculture, livestock, industries, commerce and services. We are now the country’s largest grain producer, it’s fourth largest exporter, and is fifth highest among Brazil’s 27 states.


In Brazil we have 38 Rotary Districts, with 51,280 Rotarians, 2316 clubs, 713 Rotaract Clubs and 675 Interact Clubs.

The State of Parana is divided in four Rotary Districts, ours is 4710, which is located in the northern part of the state. The greatest distance between one end of the district to the other is about 250 kms. Our main city Londrina is about an hour’s flight from Sao Paulo city.

GSE Team

Meet Your District 6540 GSE Team!

Team Members:

• Kirsten Weaver Kirsten is a graduate of Indiana University with a concentration in Science and Math and with minors in Computer Science and French. Kirsten is from Fort Wayne where she works at present with the Allen County Public Library.


• Rosalind (Roz) Leeck Roz is a graduate of Milliken University where she majored in Economics and earned her MBA from Butler University. Roz works for Demeter LP in Fowler and lives in West Lafayette.


• Justin Brugger Justin earned his BS in Public Affairs from Indiana University where he is currently working on his MPA. Justin works for his home city, Fort Wayne, where he is Program Manager of Capital Project Services.


• Lisa Worrell Lisa earned her BS in Spanish from IPFW and her Masters of Library Science from IUPUI. Lisa lives in Fort Wayne and works for the Allen County Public Library.


• Doug Risser Doug is the GSE Team Leader and is a member of the Elkhart Rotary Club. Doug lives in Goshen and is Co-Owner of Menno Travel Service there.

District 6540 Group Study Exchange program for 2006

The Group Study Exchange program is an educational program of The Rotary Foundation wherein Rotary districts in different countries are paired to send and receive professional study groups of non-Rotarian team members and one Rotarian team leader to travel for four to six weeks, staying the homes of Rotarians when possible.

Our district hosted a visiting GSE team from District 4710 in Brazil. That team’s five members arrived April 1 and departed April 28.

Our District 6540 GSE team of four young professionals left for Brazil on April 28 and will return home on May 31.

What can you do?

• We are looking for 2007 team members and a team leader to go to Buenos Aires, Argentina.


• Identify a non-Rotarian young professional and encourage them to participate.


• Invite a GSE representative to speak to your club. To do so, contact Team Leader Doug Risser at (800) 635-0963 or by e-mail to doug@MennoTrav.com