Some Perspectives from the States

by John Neely

Back from Brazil almost a week, I thought I’d get a few final thoughts out before they’re gone. On coming back to the States, naturally felt a bit of culture shock on feeling and seeing what a cushy existence we have in the US, compared to fairly widespread poverty, though not starvation level, in the Amazon (there is always fish from the rivers). We mostly spent time with the upper 10% of Brazilian society (Rotarians), who by American standards would be middle class—nice but not extravagant houses or condo apartments, with jobs, good food and leisure time.

Most Brazilians in the Amazon survive at or just above subsistence level, with low paying jobs (lucky few) with larger companies or the government, small street businesses, selling anything from clothing to food to hardware, the parking mafia, fishing/agriculture, and prostitution. Make shift housing of cheap bricks or wood, mostly on the periphery of towns, was constantly cropping up. Squatters would take over any vacant land, cut down trees and built a shanty; soon churches and stores and futebal fields would appear, and the land owner would be helpless to remove them (this was happening to Uniron University in Porto Velho, just across from campus). What kind of real estate agents sell these houses? Legal title must be near impossible.

Street life and public areas can be somewhat depressing for foreigners, given piles of uncollected trash, strong odors of no telling what, open sewers and poorly maintained sidewalks/streets and parks. Within the larger cities, the high rise condo apartmento building continued its spread to even higher levels—highest in Belem was a new 40 story twin tower. With a doorman for security, walled courtyard, and pool/party area, this model is irresistible for folks with money.

But then there are the warm and friendly Brazilians: easy going, always ready for a chat, close knit extended families, love of music and drinking the afternoon or evening away (mas uma caipirinha, por favor). Late for a meeting or event? Museo not open today?--nao problema, let’s just chat or enjoy the street scene, or change plans. This attitude drove more than one American team member crazy (no names), but others got with the Brazilian approach to things (did we have a choice?).

The Zona Franca (free trade zone—no customs) of Manaus and our tour of the aluminum processing plants near Belem gave us a chance to see the north of Brazil changing cultures. In Rio Branco and Porto Velho, working Brazilians tend to go home for the traditional large lunch and soneca, or nap, before returning to work about 3:00 until about 7. The work pace seems slow and sporatic. Our Rotarians in Manaus, in contrast, worked in factories or businesses with more modern work schedules—short breaks for lunch then back to meeting production quotas. Not much putting off until manha.

Even at the hydroelectric plant near Porto Velho, work ethics as well as work skills were being taught at the Uniron University skills training center, by a German firm (Odebrecht) building the dam. And in Belem, the massive bauxite to aluminio plant, with 3,000 employees, clearly had output foremost in mind, as workers in uniforms broke at the same time for lunch and machines kept production going.. No wonder we met so many people from Sao Paulo in the north, with their diligence, skill and know how seizing opportunities in a land of abundant resources.

Suggestions to Improve Future IGEs

This is primarily for Rotarians in District 4720, but probably applies to 6920 and other Districts as well. Overall, I believe the team felt that Rio Branco had their act together the best, primarily because the outgoing team leader (Carlos Junior) and all four team members live there. Porto Velho was reasonably organized, led by the efforts of Fernando Prado, whose family (non-Rotarians) housed, fed and transported us, and Fernando had lead a previous IGE team to the US. The Manaus experience was positive, though driving distances between host family houses was tough—up to 2-3 hours per day in the car for some of us. Though Rotarians and families (Edinaldo, Ronaldo, Vera/Ronald and Geraldo) were friendly and fun in Belem, our visit was obviously put together at the last minute, and Jenny and Alison were housed too far away in the suburbs. Apparently the Belem folks learned they were to host the Americans only 2 weeks before, at the District Conference. The team was also very tired by
the time we got to Belem. Specific suggestions:

1. Consider doing 3 weeks for IGE, not 4—team was tired and ready to go home by the end.
2. Appoint an IGE coordinator for each city at least 2 months before the visit; each city coordinator should have a planning committee of 3-4 Rotarians; by 30 days before the IGE visit, identify in writing the host families and draft a tentative schedule of activities, including professional day visits; District Governor needs to delegate these duties through a District IGE Coordinator, but monitor to make sure it’s being done.
3. Host families should live fairly close to each other, to minimize transportation time for team members; center cities are best, assuming there are places where team members can walk/explore on their own in spare time; avoid unsafe neighborhoods.
4. When possible, separate team members in individual homes, to encourage them to speak the language, and have their own special host family experience (women on team stayed together in every city).
5. Host families with children or young people are generally preferred, to give team members a better understanding of family life.
6. Allow one free day per week, for unplanned time for team members, to spend time with host family, exploring on their own, or getting together without Brazilians (to talk over any team issues).
7. Team members generally like to visit night clubs/bars at night, so identify younger folks to take them out on occasion; make arrangements for late night entry into host family homes.
8. Formally structure relevant professional days in each city, asking team members ahead of time (when possible—email, at District Conference) what would be most interesting.
9. Minimize time team spends listening to speeches at the District Conference; language barrier was too much for some; structure alternate plans.

Lessons for future team members? Be flexible (flexibilidade) and go with the flow; focus on the positives, and don’t let issues of uncomfortable housing, food or even physical concerns get you down. And learn as much Portuguese as possible before you go—the experience is much richer and fuller when you can communicate (I believe the Brazilians were impressed by how much we did know, and it certainly helped Alton achieve his goals.)

Lasting memories? Clearly the people in each city: For me, Rio Branco: Fred and his family Magna, 16 year old Joao Paulo (I expect he’ll figure a way to study in the states) and little Maria Fernanda, Fred’s nephews Ricardo and Rodrigo, the modern real estate developers (incorporadoras), and big hearted Coelho, and his sons Talis and Tasio; Porto Velho: Fernando Prado, his 3 sisters (Rita, Paula, and Claudia) who hosted team members, and Fernando Fernandes, the Indy car driver, Dr. Benedicto and his charming linguist wife, and Vitor and his girlfriend, who was perfectly happy to see Jenny leave town; Manaus: Katia, her mother and their various other family members and “secretary” Nilian, the non Japanese speaking Japanese Gerson, his family and Paolo, Fabio and his opinionated uncle Fernando at the bicycle/moto factory (“Debeers diamonds pays the Brazilian government to keep Indians on their reservation over the richest site for diamonds outside South Africa”, uncle explains), Flavio, Jose Roberto, Airton the ladies man, Fabio Rafael, the port property developer (we may do a deal) and our faithful
driver Edinaldo; Belem: Ronaldo, his wife Raimunda, father-in-law Severino, Edinaldo (Edgy), Geraldo, the future District Governor, Nabih the Lebanese, Ronald the American and is ex-GD wifeVera.

Ate a proxima vez, gente boa!

Not to worry. We have not left yet!

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/05/23/brazil.crash/index.html

For those news junkies who may be aware of last night's plane crash in northeastern Brazil, you should know that we are safe and sound and still on the ground. Our flight does not leave until 2am tonight... See you back in the States! xoxoxo

Top Ten from Brazil

I have always been a fan of lists... that is, making lists, and then not quite accomplishing all the items on said lists. David Letterman certainly puts lots of stock in lists, and I am ready to do the same since we are down to our last day overseas. Below is my amateur attempt at a Top Ten, specifically the Top Ten Things I Have Learned While In Brazil.

10. The myth of Brazilian beauty is true. If you are a male. And you believe the hype.

9. If you forget how to say it in Portuguese, just smile and nod. Or else embarrass yourself in Spanish.

8. Rotary meetings are better with blazers. Just kidding.

7. Everyone should know their caipirinha limit. Three is good. Two is better, for the sake of the rest of us.

6. There are two seasons in Brazil: the season when it rains every day, and the season when it rains all day.

5. There is no need to eat dinner. (You should have stuffed your face at the lunch buffet.)

4. Tarzan does not live in the jungle, nor do many leopards or monkeys. Go to the zoo instead.

3. Stop signs are optional. So are most traffic signals, especially red lights.

2. Trundle beds are not just for Puritans anymore.

1. There is no place like home.

A Rundown

I have not had the most internet use these past two weeks and have neglected this blog a bit too much, so I will try to make up for it here by giving a quick explanation of what I did and thought of the previous two cities (Porto Velho and Manaus).

Porto Velho:
Ate pizza with the whole group and met my host for the week. Eventually got situated in my room and slept rough (I always sleep rough the first night in a new place) and got up and fought with the door to open because it was stuck (probably because I ran the A/C too high), and then preceeded to break the shower somehow, as it would not turn off. I was told none of this was my fault, but it was me or Murphy and either way I was the last one to touch it and I've played hot potato enough to know the rules. Ate, and was swept away with John (who would be coming over to this apt every morning for a ride) and Alton who is being hosted by what becomes our weekly driver and happy host Fernando Fernandes, "a man so nice they named him twice," as I became fond of saying. Side kicks/fanbase for the week (I'll apologize here for name butchering) was the motherly host of Haeuda, and the local rotarian son Vitore, who along with Fernando "dois" (Fernandes) came along on most of our adventures. This was the personal part of my week and since the highlights of the different things we saw have been pretty well covered, I'll spare you all the doubling up of things and just move forward.

Manaus:
I enjoyed the city of Manaus and the people who hosted us, the events were fun and different, and no one was anything but gracious and giving. We met lots of people who spoke English and lots of people with interesting stories and situations. The group was, as previously hinted at, taxied around by a single driver for the entire week. This is understandable and certainly an acceptable situation since we spent every day going to the same events. The problem with this is that with a single driver you put 5 GSE folks + 1 driver in a car and with the 5 of us staying at 4 different homes you had a drive consisting of minimal of 45 minutes (this would mean no traffic and hitting all green lights and missing no turns etc), and usually the loop to pick folks up took around 1:30 one way which meant long trips in the car around the city, and a trip home, if you were at the end of the line was quite a trip. The roads are lumpy and although overall the drivers are better, there is a lot of traffic (reminds me of Atlanta) and the roads are confusing. Anways, we had some wonderful events along the way and all of the clubs were different and interesting and as long as I forget the riding around for 6 hours a day in a minivan on bumpy roads I have to admit having a good time.

The Boi-bomba was the first massive cultural experience and since I was pretty exhausted when I saw it all I will use Wikipedia (as the explanation here is pretty solid for this) to explain what it is that I witnessed.
Boi-bomba:
Bumba Meu Boi or Boi Bumbá is a popular regional festival which takes place annually in North and Northeast Brazil in Parintins. Traditionally held over the last three days in June, since 2005 it has been set as three days of the last weekend in June. It tells the story of the death and resurrection of an ox. This event also pits the two famous Samba Schools "Caprichoso" with the colors blue and black bull and "Garantido" with the red colors and white bull. Each side tries to tell their version of the story with music, dance, animatronic float(parade), and songs. The two sides are so strongly divided that streets can be clearly be seen to be color divided. The town of Parintins is the only place in the world where Coca-cola ads are in blue. (Everett note: I saw these blue ads in Manaus, and I kind of doubt it is the only place in the world).

My experience of Boi Bumbá was basically a giant canival type event with literally thousands of people dancing in syncronization with each other depending on the song being played. It is an impressive sight to see, and standing amongst it left me awestruck (for William and Carolina I used this in context).

Here is a YouTube Video that shows some of it.

Now we are in Belém and more will come of this week shortly. Maybe even by me.

-Everett

Thoughts as we Leave Manaus

Arrived Belem last night, to new group of nice families. But a few more thoughts about Manaus. Economy of Manaus dominated by 500 or so factories in the Free Trade Zone (Zona Franca), which have created thousands of jobs. Toured bicycle factory that was busy, despite somewhat slower economy. Same company builds motorcycles too, and they had just closed it for 30 days. Folks can apparently still afford bikes, but moto's are a bit out of reach. Manaus folks say that government policy for Amazonas is to create high tech jobs that do not require much land, so that the state has only cut down about 2% of it's forests, compared to 10% in Acre (Rio Branco), 20% in Rondonia (Porto Velho) and 40% in Para (Belem).

Many Japanese in Manaus--Alton stayed with Gerson Aoki, whose son and daughter spoke decent English. Gerson spoke English well too, but none of his family could speak Japanese. They are third generation, from Sao Paulo in south. Kind of strange to hear educated Japanese speaking primarily Portuguese--aculturation seems complete. Most of the successful Rotarians we meet in the Amazon seem to have some connection to the south, especially Sao Paulo. Paulo, a Japanese Rotarian working in logistics in Manaus (warehousing, trucking) said that most products leaving the Amazon pass through Belem to the south, so that Belem is more of an intermediary city, without the strong manufacturing base that Manaus has.

On Saturday we drove about 100 km to Presidente Figueredo, with younger Roteract members; saw several nice water falls, swam, then got rained out , so skipped caves/hike because of muito lama, or mud, which we have seen a lot of. That night Alton and Everett had enough energy to go to a big spectacle called Boi-Bumba in the Sambadromo--thousands of folks, with folkloric dancing and very loud music. On Friday we took a Rotarian's rather large yacht to see the meeting of the waters--Rio Negro and Amazon meet, mixing cooler, darker acidic water with warmer muddy water, that mix slowly--touristy but interesting. Jose Roberto and Airton (both single and scouting) started us early with caipirinhas; stopped for lunch at a floating restaurant, with tourist gifties, but with nice wooden trail back to see Victoria Regia, or big water lillies. All returned sun burned.

Attended pleasant party of Rotarians, their families and our host families for a Japanese/Brazilian meal, with sushi. Live music, Everett stayed latest. Earlier, also attended Rotaract meeting, with 10 or so teenagers (or slightly older); mostly children of Rotarians; Rotaract seems to be more active here than in the States.

Spent too much time in car in Manaus, with motorista Rinaldo. Rotarians had hired him to pick us up and return us to our houses, which meant 2-3 hours per day in the car. Everett seemed to get the worst of it, Alton got dragged out (?) once or twice at night to clubs by our driver Rinaldo, who became our good friend. Good driver, and we'll remember his plaintiff call to temptation-- Jeennny, Aleesun, danca forro...

Back to Belem, for Rotary meeting tonight, the first of several.