The Brazilian way

Enjoy reading (muito prazer)!

Before coming to Brazil I heard stories about the cultural differences. As I said in my last post, you pay your food per kilo during lunch. And as I see it, most Brazilians in Viçosa go out eating during lunch, except on Sunday when everything is closed. It is really tempting to eat a lot this way... 
One of the most common dishes during lunch is rice and/with beans (arroz e feijão). 

One of the mean cultural things I knew before and experienced pretty soon after my arrival in Viçosa is that hugging people is really common. Even when you just met someone you can hug them, or they will 😉. It is really something you need to get used to it. And I am still learning when I should hug and when not, sometimes it gets really confusing. 

One day we went for a long walk to the old internship of one of my housemates. It was a farm were they perform research with cows, some cows had surgery in order to look into and take samples from a cow's stomach. It was pretty amazing and interesting to see. Also as my roommate described it, there was a little piece of the Netherlands too. Real dutch cows like we know from the Netherlands, only they apparently don't produce milk as good as the do in the Netherlands. This is due to the climate that they aren't used to. 
After a tiresome way back we arrived in a Viçosa city without energy. Sometimes the energy was back and out again... I must say it was pretty funny to see, a complete city where all of the lights turn off and on at the same time.

Little piece of Netherlands

During the last Saturday before the university starts, I went for a forest walk. There is a not to big forest near the campus, about 20 minutes walking from my apartment. There I saw my first wild monkey or better called a Saguis. I also have seen a capibara somewhere at the campus earlier that week. Because I went to the forest just before closure, I didn't see really much of it. So I will be visiting it again soon, then I will be armed with a camera. Because it aren't good quality photo's I took from the monkey. 











The Sunday thereafter it was my birthday, it was also the last day of summer break in Brazil. The Brazilian students celebrate this last free day during a big party on the street. So I combined this celebration with my birthday. It was a very nice and interesting night. I met a lot of new people and experienced my first Brazilian party. They even sing 'Happy Birthday' in Brazilian Portugees for me 😃

Happy birthday!!🙌

So after 2 weeks of the summer break in Brazil I finally could start with my internship and the project. During the few visits that I already made to my department within the university's campus I was convinced I needed a bicycle.
... Really badly ...

From my apartment to the Departamento de Engenharia Agrícola (or DEA as I call it 😎) was a 30 minute walk in the burning sun. I felt like I was shrunken when I finally arrived. So thanks to a friend of Nathan I got a bicycle really easy. It only needed to be adjusted to my size and the tires needed to be pumped. Easier said than done in Brazil. But it worked!

So my project is still somewhat of a mess and I am still working to clarify it. For now I can say, forget what I told you about the drying techniques and the difficulties they had/have with them. As I now see it, I will be researching some sustainable and/or production efficiency improvements within the whole coffee production. This is from harvest till storage of the green beans. The green beans are the products that are sold to other countries like for example the Netherlands. The Netherlands is an important importer of green coffee as it is called, it is the seventh largest importer in Europe. It accounts nearly for 5% of the total import and is about 159.000 ton of green coffee (= €431.000.000). Just to give you an idea 😉

Coffee berries

Brazil on its turn produces nearly 2.6 million tonnes of green coffee in 2015, this is half of the world production! I do my internship in Minas Gerais which produces roughly 58,21% of Brazilian coffee in 2016 (mostly Arabica beans). Within the project I probably will focus on efficiency improvement of harvesting. Because during harvest there are red/mature berries and green/immature berries harvested (approxamitly 50/50). The green/immature berries are low in value due to low quality coffee. I will research for a technique to increase this quality. An other focus is selecting a right drying technique or combination of techniques to dry almost any type of prepared berry.

Also I have had my first Portuguese classes, they are very difficult! I have a practical and theoretical lesson, during practical classes you practice speaking and during theoretical classes you practice grammar 😓. The teacher does not speak English and talks only Portuguese. Many times I look like ... what are you saying dude ... Luckily the practical teacher speaks English but only, only when it is really necessary. But I am having progress, only really slow. At the first theoretical class we got immediately a test, to test our level of Portuguese. Well they also just could ask it, I would have honestly answer: none 😇. Funny thing is that most Brazilian students I met/know are really willing to teach me Portuguese. So I learn a little more faster, now I feel like I can understand most of it what they are saying to me but don't know how tho answer them. 

Thursday Katinka and I went to Juiz de Fora (a huge city, 526.000 inhabitants). We went there to register with the Federal Police so we may stay in Brazil. It was a 3 hours driving by car and when we were there, we didn't know where to go. Luckily people/students of EPAMIG went with us, I don't know how I would have managed it without them. I discoverd there I needed to withdraw money because I couldn't pay with card. Also my passport photographs I took in the Netherlands were not correct and I needed to make new ones at the office there. When everything was good, they inked my fingerprints of every finger I have... Really old fashion, but it was cool! All my fingers coverd in blue ink, difficult to remove but it was kind of funny. With all the bureaucracy and really wrong and chaotic organization we spent there about 2,5 hours 😶. In the parking garage I took one beautiful panorama. And some other photo's on our way to Juiz the Fora.

Behold Juiz de Fora!

Where we had coffee break during our way back

Até mais!! 👋👋👋