Off to our usual start with Carin picking us up at 8:30 from the hotel. The first part of the morning passed quickly with some of the team preparing for three interviews later in the day and others completing interview notes from yesterday or other tasks. We met around 10 (together with a morning tea that Carin organised of rolls and other goodies) to discuss the day before and review one of the pieces of work we've been doing.
Shortly after we'd finished doing that the first interviewee, a lecturer from the University, arrived and two of the team started working with him. Then Laerte arrived to take two of us (Cecilia and me) to meet the under-secretary, Marília, at the municipal government's offices. Marília works in the Desenvolvimento Social e Trabalho secretariat, or Social Welfare as we would know it in NZ, although it is a municipal function, not a national government function. It was a very useful interview and certainly helped us understand the position of the local government and some of the many complexities they deal with, as well as confirming from another perspective some of the things we have learned.
Arriving back at the office it was getting on for 2 pm, when the local kilo restaurant closes. The others were still working with the lecturer who was being very helpful indeed but he had to leave so we all went round to the restaurant for lunch. Even although it was the end of the lunch session there was still a reasonable choice of foodstuffs.
When we came back one of the IBM CSC organisers, Bruno, was in the office so we spent an hour with him, briefing him on what we'd done and he provided us with various links and information that will be very useful. Whilst we were meeting with him there was thunder, lightning, wind and heavy rain, our first experience of poor weather here. Laerte arrived around 3:30 to take us to our final appointment for the day, with a senior business executive who has had extensive experience in working with a variety of NGOs, including establishing them.
As the executive was on leave we went to his home which was in a gated community on the other side of the city. Once through the gate the transformation was immediate and obvious - gone were the high walls and electrified fences, instead lawns rolled from the houses down the slopes to the path and it was just like going down a well-to-do street in Auckland. His front door was three times the normal door width - very impressive! We were taken through the house and sat under a glass awning in a very attractive entertainment area, complete with large built in barbecue. I felt at home - or rather at someone else's home in NZ!
After the introductions and some fresh juice and coffee we got down to business and spent over two hours talking with him, getting a wealth of information that will take us some time tomorrow to document and analyse. An excellent session and we were very grateful to him for giving up some of his holiday time to host us and answer our questions.
As it was well after 6:30 when we finished Laerte drove us back to our hotel where Cecilia, Chi and I had a short break before heading up to the mall. The plan for this weekend is to go to a spa area about three hours away so I thought I'd better get a pair of swimshorts, and Cecilia needed a swimsuit. This time I had a slightly better range of choice of three (all much the same, it has to be said). Even better, when I got to the checkout it turned out they were marked down to half price, not that there seemed to be any indication of this on the rack or the ticket, so far as I could see. It would seem that there is not a lot of demand for the extra large range of swimshorts. Having said that it would be wrong to leave you with the impression that Uberlândia is full of lithe young things of both sexes and nothing else - there's a wide mixture of body shapes and sizes, although, so far as I can see, not the numbers at the larger end that we have in NZ and the UK.
Arriving back at the hotel around 8:30 Chi and Cecilia decided they'd done enough for one day so I was about to consider room service for dinner when I got a text to say that some of the team were in the pub down the road. So I ended the day with a couple of beers (another brew new to me) and a veal parmigiana which was both very large and very good.
And so to bed.
#ibmcsc brazil
No comments:
Post a Comment