Tuesday May 9
Okay, so I got the date wrong yesterday and today is the 9th.
Today was Ag Day so Roz was in her element.
We visited a cooperative today, starting with a visit to the office first and followed by a visit to the grain processing facilities, mostly soybeans and corn but also wheat and coffee. According to Roz, much like the US in many ways. Roz can load some of her 400 pictures in case anyone else really cares!
More interesting was the afternoon when we went to the sugar cane fields and observed up close and personal the harvesting of the cane. The fields had already been burnt off to get rid of the unnecessary stuff and harvesters were using machetes to cut the cane by hand which was then loaded onto Julietas (trailers) for transport to the mill. Each ton of cane will produce about 15 liters (under 4 gallons) of alcohol.
From there the Julietas were dumped and the cane crushed and the liquid extracted. From that, the liquid was distilled into alcohol for use in cars and the remaining pulp was either burned to generate power or to be spread on the ground as fertilizer. So far, this was the only place that has required hardhats and ear plugs as we got right into the heart of the factory. Kirsten was bothered by all the heights and open flooring up in the mill.
After returning to town, we all went to Justin´s home and refined our presentation for the Rotary Club presentation tonight. As much as we improved it from the first to second time, I think we are improving it again as much. The last time we cut the time and subject matter to just speak about us and our interests and this time we got the spelling and grammer right and changed/added some photos to be more interesting.
Aran, President of the Astorga Rainha da Amizade Club, helped with the translation. When we finished at Justin´s home, we visited Aran´s dental office where he proudly showed us his massaging dental chair and hand-held camera. He said that Fernanda Gorini, who visited our district in April, worked with him earlier today. We look forward to seeing her again as well.
Enough for now--we´ll add more later as we have time.
Today was Ag Day so Roz was in her element.
We visited a cooperative today, starting with a visit to the office first and followed by a visit to the grain processing facilities, mostly soybeans and corn but also wheat and coffee. According to Roz, much like the US in many ways. Roz can load some of her 400 pictures in case anyone else really cares!
More interesting was the afternoon when we went to the sugar cane fields and observed up close and personal the harvesting of the cane. The fields had already been burnt off to get rid of the unnecessary stuff and harvesters were using machetes to cut the cane by hand which was then loaded onto Julietas (trailers) for transport to the mill. Each ton of cane will produce about 15 liters (under 4 gallons) of alcohol.
From there the Julietas were dumped and the cane crushed and the liquid extracted. From that, the liquid was distilled into alcohol for use in cars and the remaining pulp was either burned to generate power or to be spread on the ground as fertilizer. So far, this was the only place that has required hardhats and ear plugs as we got right into the heart of the factory. Kirsten was bothered by all the heights and open flooring up in the mill.
After returning to town, we all went to Justin´s home and refined our presentation for the Rotary Club presentation tonight. As much as we improved it from the first to second time, I think we are improving it again as much. The last time we cut the time and subject matter to just speak about us and our interests and this time we got the spelling and grammer right and changed/added some photos to be more interesting.
Aran, President of the Astorga Rainha da Amizade Club, helped with the translation. When we finished at Justin´s home, we visited Aran´s dental office where he proudly showed us his massaging dental chair and hand-held camera. He said that Fernanda Gorini, who visited our district in April, worked with him earlier today. We look forward to seeing her again as well.
Enough for now--we´ll add more later as we have time.
posted by Doug Risser at 2:00 PM
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