So....long story short I was in the countryside and then I got to my host family in Curitiba who must have bought the first computer ever and decided to never get a new one. So now I~m posting the day before I leave for South Africa!
So we left Sao Paulo and went to MST which is the landless peasant movment. They work toward agrarian reform and basically occupy land that isnt being used to the best of its potential and start using it for agriculture and create settlements. So we stopped for 2 days at a settlement on the way to Curitiba which was really cool. they grow 85% of their food and have chickens, pigs, goats, and dogs. They have solar panels that power the toilets and showers and they filter their gray water so it doesnt have an impact on the river when they dump the water there. They have a honey area where they bottle and sell honey, their own radio station, a lake (that we swam in and was nice), an orchard, a garden,...lots!
mst is badass
us meeting in the "school of horticulture"
pigs!
this picture accidently got uploaded....joanna!
this is clovis the goat...clovis was named after one of our country coordinators even though the goat is a girl. Clovis thinks she is a dog and would follow us everywhere, she even accompanied people on their morning runs!
playin spoons at mst
So we got to Curitiba and Unilivre, the free school of the environment. It was built in an old abandoned quarry and is a free school that anyone can come to to do...environment stuff.
so this is the boardwalk I walk to my school called Unilivre, the school of the environment
and it comes out onto this abandoned quarry
and this is the school
view from the top of my school
also view from my school
So Curitiba is alright, although reading about it makes it seem better. We did see though the recylcing program in which people can exchange trash for food, a reading program where kids can bring trash to "Lighthouses of Learning" and get books for school, and one of the best bus systems in the world. I read that instead of using lawn mowers in the parks they use flocks of sheep but...I didnt see that. So my host parents are Ernesto and Rosilene who are in their 60s and have a son who is 27 (and is also one of the top ten best commercial models in the state? hes also kind of a tool). Theyve been hosting kids for 8 years so theyre obviously looking to keep kids around. Rosilene speaks some English, Ernesto speaks none and Steph speaks spanish so we get by. Im living with Gabi, my last roommate, and Steph who is an orthodox jew which when in another country means shes vegan pretty much. They also have a pitbull named Princess who is scared shitless of us for unknown reasons...but shes coming around...now that were leaving. So we only had one weekend here and on Saturday I took this train that goes through the wilderness and is beautiful and ends at this town that is known for its banana stuff (banana chips, banana cachaca).
on the train through brazilian rain forest, pretty, no?
these are pictures of the town, Merretes that was at the end of the train ride.
The next day I went to the big hippy craft fair (and was united with about 20 ihp kiuds through the magic of IHP which always unites us anywhere). Then we visited the Oscar Neiermeyer museum. Hes a famous brazilian architect and the museum had ths awesome exhibit on the Twins. The twins are a pair of famous twin grafitti artists (in my first post in brazil I had a grafitti picture with two heads..thats their stuff). Their stuff is all over sao paulo as well as in other countries where they are now commissioned to do work cuz its so good. I didnt get to take any pictures in the museum cuz i forgot my camera but ill try to post later.
Yesterday we had a site visit to Volvo. Um...enough said for that.
So to sum up, things ill miss about brazil:
-mangos!
-starfruit
-cachaca
-caipirinhas
-voce quer ficar comigo?
-the peanut butter stuff that is not peanut butter, but are candy things
-amendocrem which is like peanut butter with 5x more sugar and is awesome
-Flavia!
-rice and beans
-trashy tattoos
off to south africa! i miss you all, leave me comments!
WECLCOME TO JURASSIC PARK
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