Week #2 Monday through Wednesday

January 12 – Cristina covered many topics in each of her lectures.  We covered letters, number, months, food, food habits, ordering in restaurants, family and friends, types of clothing, shopping, greetings, common verbs, the majors of the students…  They are expected to introduce themselves to their host families.  They will say their name, where they are from, their major, the number of people in their family, what they like to do and their favorite Brazilian food.  The pictures below show them shopping at a store and picking out clothing to buy.  You can see that Stephanie and Nick make great manikins.

Prof Mello continued his lectures and the students were hyped for the Buckeye’s football game.  We were able to have the game televised in the lobby of Antonio’s Palace in English. Many of the students took a nap and had supper or vice versa after classes since the game didn’t start until 11:30 pm. AZP Class 16 was pretty confident the Buckeyes would win but in the end it was hard to believe what the team was able to accomplish this year.  They were able to overcome each obstacle that was put in front of them and it felt good to be a part of the OSU community.  The students finally got to bed around 3:30 am.  It was a short night for classes starting at 8:00 am the next morning.  Tuesday was a struggle for all after a very hot weekend in the sun and then the late night with the game.

January 13 - A new instructor began his lectures Tuesday morning and we warned him about the game and staying up late because I am sure the students had a tough time focusing and staying awake most of the day.  His area of interest is economics and he graduated from OSU with his PhD.  Prof Peres told us about his family and as he said “tried to make a boring subject interesting”.

Tuesday was also Brittany’s 20^th birthday.  Cristina taught the group how to sing Happy Birthday in Portuguese and then after lunch we had a Brazilian cake for Brittany and sang Happy Birthday in Portuguese.  Brazil has a tradition that instead of cutting the cake by slicing down the birthday person slices upward for good luck and then gives the first piece to someone special.  Isadore received the first piece.  We all enjoyed the cake which had a custard filling and gave Brittany a card signed by everyone.

Tuesday night everyone went to bed early and tried to catch up on some much needed sleep.

January 14 - Wednesday was a day of Eucalyptus trees.  It started out with a breakfast of fresh fruits and bakery items.  The fruits and juices are just amazing.

We boarded the bus at 8:00 am and drove for about 2 1/2 hours to Itatinga and a research station focused on Eucalyptus trees.  We learned about the impact that Eucalyptus has on the Brazilian economy.  It is used in paper production, construction, boxes and honey.  It is a fast growing tree and can be harvested in seven years.  At this research station they have been able to triple production over 30 years.  They are cloning or growing seedlings with homogenous DNA that is disease resistant.  We were able to see the seedlings all the way up to an over mature tree.  The clinical garden of seedlings is kept isolated from everything else to protect the seedlings from diseases and insects.  They also are planting Acusa, another type of plant that is nitrogen bearing to see if it is beneficial to the Eucalyptus.  Eucalyptus Grande grows very fast but is not very dense.    The large Eucalyptus Grande is about 50 years old.  Some types of Eucalyptus produce citronella from the leaves and others produce honey.  The Master’s student that did the tour for us is living at the research station and conducting research on the impact of nutrients:   phosphorus, calcium and nitrogen on growth.  We were able to see her actual research plots and she explained what she was doing.  We are now on our ride back to Piracicaba.  As I look back, most of the students are sleeping after a day of being outside with the trees.

AZP Class 16 Brotos Whitewater Rafting 1-11-2015

We all survived!!  We all came back in one piece!  A bit sunburned and tired but I think they will say they had a great day!!  I am very proud of everyone especially those who have never rafted before  and those who were quite anxious about being in water.  Everyone pushed themselves to do their best.  The morning started with a set of directions and safety instructions in both Portuguese and English.  The major commands we learned were forward, backward, left forward, left backward and get down.  We divided into three rafts of 7 with a guide.  We practiced as a team before we got started.  The water was low because this part of the state is still suffering from low waterfall which started last year.  We had several drops to maneuver and two spots where we were able to get out a swim.  At one spot they have let us float down a small drop which was fun.  That's the first in my trips that they let us swim down a drop.  We had an outstanding lunch of rice, cassava, pork ribs, salad and orange juice. Then after lunch we had the choice of zip lining or a lazy river float.  Most chose the lazy river float.  Very relaxing.  I think the following pictures will tell the story.

Saturday - The Dairy Industry

Our first field trip.... the excitement rising, 91 degrees at 8:30 in the morning, 93 degrees at 7:10 pm as I type this.  Whooosh!  Hot day but invigorating.  We left Antonio's Palace at 8:30 am and headed to Fazenda Cachoeira which is a dairy farm with 400 cows, 170 of which are milking.  The cows average 65 pounds of milk per day.  They people who are managing the farm are doing it for an investor who loves soccer teams and dairy.  They currently are producing 6000 kilos  of milk per day and want to expand to 60,000 kilos in the next six years.  Feed is their biggest cost with 70% of the cost produced on the farm and the other 30% is purchased inputs.They currently use US genetics with Select Sires and ABS.  You can see us with our boot covers on before we entered the building and they were worn for the whole visit.  We were able to see their feeding area, loafing shed which had peanut hulls last year for bedding and this year they are using compost, the milking parlor, the area for the calves, and pasture.  The students learned much about dairy cows and were able to "talk with the animals".   After each visit we give the host a thank you gift so you will see a picture of one of the students handing a gift to the host or the host with the gift.

We ate lunch in Sao Pedro at a quaint restaurant that probably was an old house initially.  It had a lot of wood and personality.  The meal was great and the city is small but very welcoming.  Many of us ordered homemade ice cream for dessert.  Many new flavors to pick from especially fruit flavors like plum!

In the afternoon we visited a dairy coop that processes 4000 liters of milk per day.  There are 126 farmers as a part of the coop with 36 farmers producing milk.  Currently the milk is processed as whole milk and yogurt but the coop will be expanding to cheese also.  They supply the grade schools in the five cities around Sao Pedro.  70% of the expansion will be funded by World Bank and 30% by the farmers of the coop.  The farmers actually built the facility they have now.  The biggest problem right now is milk production is not stable all year long and when the schools have their vacation they have extra milk so the intent is to make it into cheese which will last longer.  They use eucalyptus wood to provide the heat source for pasteurization.  You can see the milk that is packaged in plastic and we were able to taste it as well as three different kinds of yogurt: pineapple (abacaxi), strawberry (morango) and coconut (coco) mmmmm good!!

We then visited one of the small farms of a member of the coop.  This farmer is also the person who started the coop initially and has provided tremendous leadership to the community.  I think the students enjoyed listening to his responses to the questions.  He had chickens and cows and was very proud to show us each of his cows.

On the way back to Piracicaba we stopped at a look out that was gorgeous and we could actually see Piracicaba off in the distance.

A group of the students went to the Piracicaba Mall and a group came back to the hotel.  I am sure there will be some sunburned students in the morning.