May 2-3
Tuesday, May 2
Today we began our official visits in our team uniforms, starting with a visit to Conex, an organization for the export of furniture, followed by a visit to a local furniture manufacturer, Caemunn.
After lunch, we visited the Mayor’s office where we enjoyed meeting with him and learning more about the city. He presented a large City flag which Justin will present to the city of Fort Wayne since the majority of the team members are from there. After the city offices, we visited a cultural center (watched a children’s show of SnowWhite), park, municipal library, and performance theatre.
Doug’s host family hosted the evening dinner at their home. Got quite cold outside, so it was moved into a closed-off area. Everyone seems to be building good friendships, getting into the Brazilian culture, and picking up little by little on the Portuguese.
Wednesday, May 3
This is Roz’s day, a day on the farm, in this case a fazenda that produces coffee, oranges, soybeans, and cattle. Great to get out into the beautiful countryside and enjoy the tranquility of the setting. Learned about the production of coffee, from beginning to end. This region of Brazil formerly produced double the amount of the total coffee production of Brazil today. A heavy freeze in 1975 wiped out the entire production and many producers changed over to other crops, primarily soybeans, corn, and wheat.
The afternoon was ours to prepare for our presentation tonight at the joint meeting of the three Arapongas Rotary Clubs. Justin and Kirsten had worked on Powerpoint presentations presentations but we had never had a time to get together to discuss what we were doing since back in February as Lisa could not attend District Conference.
Our intent was to keep it short and despite our poor Portuguese, to present it in Portuguese.
Well, it didn’t come off as well as we had hoped. It ran long, much of what we had on our slides was the same as what we were reading, we ran long, and we covered too much that was not of interest. We need to condense, practice more, and revise what we’re saying to better reflect what is interesting to our audience rather than what is of interest to us.
Today we began our official visits in our team uniforms, starting with a visit to Conex, an organization for the export of furniture, followed by a visit to a local furniture manufacturer, Caemunn.
After lunch, we visited the Mayor’s office where we enjoyed meeting with him and learning more about the city. He presented a large City flag which Justin will present to the city of Fort Wayne since the majority of the team members are from there. After the city offices, we visited a cultural center (watched a children’s show of SnowWhite), park, municipal library, and performance theatre.
Doug’s host family hosted the evening dinner at their home. Got quite cold outside, so it was moved into a closed-off area. Everyone seems to be building good friendships, getting into the Brazilian culture, and picking up little by little on the Portuguese.
Wednesday, May 3
This is Roz’s day, a day on the farm, in this case a fazenda that produces coffee, oranges, soybeans, and cattle. Great to get out into the beautiful countryside and enjoy the tranquility of the setting. Learned about the production of coffee, from beginning to end. This region of Brazil formerly produced double the amount of the total coffee production of Brazil today. A heavy freeze in 1975 wiped out the entire production and many producers changed over to other crops, primarily soybeans, corn, and wheat.
The afternoon was ours to prepare for our presentation tonight at the joint meeting of the three Arapongas Rotary Clubs. Justin and Kirsten had worked on Powerpoint presentations presentations but we had never had a time to get together to discuss what we were doing since back in February as Lisa could not attend District Conference.
Our intent was to keep it short and despite our poor Portuguese, to present it in Portuguese.
Well, it didn’t come off as well as we had hoped. It ran long, much of what we had on our slides was the same as what we were reading, we ran long, and we covered too much that was not of interest. We need to condense, practice more, and revise what we’re saying to better reflect what is interesting to our audience rather than what is of interest to us.
posted by Doug Risser at 5:23 AM
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