My First Day at Work and Speaking Nothing but Portuguese!

8/6/13
Alec Roth

You can immediately tell the difference from Paulistas(people of Sao Paulo) and Baianos(people of Bahia). The Baianos are more relaxed, and take more time to enjoy the simple things in life.

I am sitting in the house of my host family. Here lives Viviane, her husband Alepeo and her father. Viviane works at G.A.P.(Groupo Ambientalismo de Palmeiras) (The Environmental Group of Palmeiras), this is where I will be interning for my one month stay in Palmeiras. The family is very nice and are extremely hospitable. They have a lovely house with a rooftop garden where they plant legumes and have a chicken pen. They eat the chickens but also use them for their eggs, which they sell to neighbors when there are extra.

Today Viviane was working at one of Palmeiras’ public schools and could not show me around town. So another GAP employee, whose name escapes me at the moment, showed me around the tiny town. It took about an hour and a half to walk around and visit her friends and other people associated with the NGO. Everyone knows each other in Palmeiras so there is constant greetings and kisses. Not too many people own cars since there is no need for them in the town. Everyone either bikes or walks to their destinations.

Later, at the GAP 'Projeto' site, I helped Joas build a wall out of tires and mud basically. It is going to take a lot of work and time to finish, eventually it will block off the trash from the recycling section of the compound.

Joas is an amazing person, before him there was no such thing as GAP, no recycling or environmental programs for the town. He has done a lot of good in his life. He lives the life of a true minimalist and has his heart in the right places. He is a spiritual, all natural Rastafarian. He has never smoked, does not drink alcohol and has not eaten meat in 30 some years. I have a lot of respect for this man; he is simply high on life.

Afterwards I went to his friend Pablo’s house for his son’s birthday party. Although it was a tad boring, I was able to meet some cool people, Pablo included. Pablo is one of three who run the Chapada Diamantina National Park(within which Palmeiras is located), he lamented that environmental services are underfunded in Brazil and how it is impossible to fully protect the National Parks and Forests. We discussed how many countries tend to poorly allocate resources and funds. Yet we also spoke specifically about America: if our government took just a fraction of the $600 Billion spent annually on our Military/Defense programs we could all live in a cleaner, healthier, better educated world. 

Made of glass bottles, is the GAP welcoming sign.