Week 4
January 26 – At 7:00 pm we met to debrief from the home stays. The students seemed to have had a positive
experience and were matched well with their families. I asked them each to talk about two things
they did they were excited to tell everyone about and two things they learned
about Brazilians, Brazilian culture or families that they didn’t know
already. This year we added an
additional day with the families to learn about where one of the family members
works. What is a Brazilian workplace like?
Share with Brazilians about the U.S and vice versa. It seemed to a positive addition to the
program. Check the students for the pictures they have posted.
January 27 – We visited Holumbra in the morning which is a community
with Dutch influence. The houses have a Dutch look and there is a windmill in
the center of town. In Holumbra we visited Syngenta Seed Lab. Syngenta has 26,000 employees and it started
in Holumbra because of its closeness to Sao Paulo, the Campinas airport and the
ports in Sao Paulo. It was merger of ICA
and Zeneca. They produce seeds, lawn and
garden products, and crop protection items.
Their major products are non-selective herbicides and fungicides and
insecticides. This location does much of
the research on seeds. Most of the employees
at Syngenta are young and have been there for 1-4 years. In the afternoon we went to another location
of Syngenta in Paulina. We saw their
warehouse facilities. Most of the
evening was spent studying for the exam.
January 28 – EXAM DAY!!! 18
anxious students. The students generated
questions for each instructor to address questions about their topics. Then Shirota reviewed all the activities and
stops of the long trip. Then the
students had time for lunch and any additional studying they needed. At 1:00 the instructors that were available addressed
questions. The students had two hours
for the exam. One question from each of
the four instructors. Once the exam was
completed they took time to pack, go out to eat and celebrated in any order they
chose.
January 29 – Everyone woke up happy and ready to go on the long
trip. We started the day at
Coplacana. Coplacana is a large coop
with 10,000 members. They produce one
million liters per day, $100,000,000 per day.
The major focus is sugar cane with 80% of their production in sugar cane. 10 tons of animal feed is made per hour. The Piracicaba area produces two ton per
hectare of sugar cane. 90% of the
fertilizer containers are recycled compared to 50% in the U.S. In the afternoon
we visited the lab that analyzes all the corn and soybeans. We also saw their biodiesel plant which was
not in production because the cost of soybeans is too high to make any profit
because of the drought. They also feed
out cattle of the members but that is between April and December. When I first visited Coplacana they were just
starting to build the biodiesel plant.
It was interested to see it completed.
We are now on the bus traveling to Londrina. Two more hours to go.
Due to Wi-Fi issues and exhaustion this is just getting posted Sorry about that.
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