Blogs from Alagoas, Brazil, South America - page 2

Instituto Eco-Engenho Instituto Eco-Engenho was founded by José Roberto Fonseca in 2001. The goal of the NGO is to use technology for sustainable development, taking advantage of renewable resources and innovative solutions oriented toward the needs and capabilities of marginalized communities. The program we visited is called H2Sol, whose goal is to use “micro-irrigation systems to produce high value-added products with the use of renewable energy to generate income in remote communities of the semi-arid region of Brazilian northeast” (from Eco-Engenho). The pilot project is located in Baixas, in the municipality of São José da Tapera, in the interior of the state of Alagoas. H2Sol receives funding from the Fiorello LaGuardia Foundation, Fundo de Microcrédito de Alagoas - FUNCRE, United States Agency for International Development - USAID, E3V - Environment Energy and Enterprise Vent... read more

We made the trip from Salvador by bus to Maceio. This was our first overnight journey. The buses are nice and really comfortable but the only problem is the air conditioning, we continuously woke up freezing through the entire journey. One piece of advice if you are travelling on overnight buses in Brazil, bring a sleeping bag or at least a pair long johns!! We got in early the next morning and the weather was noticeable warmer. We had planned a day on the beach but we didn't make it, booo, basically we could not make our lazy assess move and ended up hitting our bed for a daytime nap. Maceio is a small city by Brazilian standards but the coast line is beautiful. The beaches are lined with Palm trees and also small cone shaped ... read more

Link to a photo and video montage on YouTube.com: http://youtube.com/watch?v=82rx3DCObqY For starters, let's just get one thing straight: time is very different in Brazil. Once you get used to this and the fact that when you're travelling in a third world country, you have no cell phones and no internet, then you just might start to get in the mindset I was in for the trip. It started off a bit rough. You just have to plan better when you're with people and you have to do what you said you would do. You can't say one thing and call ahead to change your plans or dissappear and try to meet up with people later. It just doesn't happen! haha. Aright, so from there, you could see how waiting in line in customs at Sao Paulo ... read more

Austria: 13-1 Scottland: 13-3 Switzerland: 8-6 Today we played Austria, Scottland and Switzerland and our cheers were as follows: We tried and tried to think of a Mozart song we could put words to, but we failed, so we did a Bach song and apologized for our short coming within the lyrics, haha. To Scottland, we started with a dramatization of Braveheart. "I heard William Wallace played for the Scotts", etc. Ha. To Switzerland, we did a Sound of Music Montage. Changed the words to "The Hills are alive, with the sound of Ultimate." "The stall count is 7 going on 8." and "How do you solve a problem like heat exhaustion?" Hehe. All fabulous cheers. We played the beers half burried in the sand again and Austria and the USA bonded over staying in the ... read more

Spain: 8-10 Brazil: 18-3 Spain beat us!!! It just might have been the best loss to ever have. We were getting so comfortable being 8 and 10 points ahead of teams, leading the entire game. The mental side of being behind was never challenged up to this point. It was just what we needed in case Germany came out stronger against us in the finals. By this point, we knew we had an automatic bye into the finals because the records of the other teams. Spain didn't have enough permanent residents/citizens of Spain to play in the semis, so Austria and Germany played the semi to meet us in the final as their third game of the day. With our bid to the finals, we were able to watch and support the women's team winning their ... read more