Passo Fundo
Angelo and Lamar: I ventured to the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sol to visit Lamar (pictured at right) whom I had befriended 8 years ago on my AFS study abroad program in Bassano del Grappa, Italy. I stayed at Lamar and Angelo's apartment for a week, enjoying their hospitality of Brazilian cuisine and mate while trying to learn Portugese by watching episodes of Woody the Woodpecker on television. I could understand some Portugese, but I communicated in mostly Spanish mixed with a little bit of Portugese lexicon.Lamar and Angelo were gracious hosts, making me dinner, chicken hearts, tons of mate and told me to stay as long as I wanted.
Lamar is studying agronomy at the local college. His English is really good and we mostly communicated with that. Lamar took me over to his parents' house for lunch every day. He works for his father selling seeds and agrochemicals from companies like Monsanto to local farmers.
In Passo Fundo and its state of Rio Grande do Sol, they take yerba mate or 'chimarrão' very seriously. This statue was in the center of the city square!
I drank the Brazilian mate every day. Their mate is pulverized and they part all of the yerba on one side in a special way and slowly push more of the dry yerba into the tea as time passes.
Lamar's bathroom windows
view from Lamar's balcony
my laundry drying on the balconies
In the three Brazilian cities that I visited, it appeared that all of the trash pickup is done by horse-drawn carts.
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