Work Day Six - segunda-fiera 16th setembro - Interviews and Meetings (entrevistas e reuniões)

We agreed to have a later start today to give us time to catch up on our reading and searching for relevant material, so Carin met us in the foyer at 11.  As our 1pm interview, which was to have been over lunch, was now to be held in the office, Carin decided with our interpreter Marianna that we'd better have lunch early. So at 11:30 we were seated in the kilo restaurant enjoying a very light lunch, as our digestive systems were still working through breakfast.

Back at the office we had a series of discussions over some key points and prepared for our 1pm interview, which was with one of the SEDE team.  It went well.  We thought our next interview was to be at 2:30 pm at the University but this couldn't be changed from its original time of 2 pm so our team ended up being late there and didn't really have the chance to ask many questions.  The interviewee very kindly agreed to reschedule to 5 pm.  Once back at the office Chi asked Carin and Marianna to find something nice to eat for afternoon tea at her expense so they brought back a delicious selection of cheese-flavoured small, slightly sweet, rolls; a very puffy light donut shaped and cheese flavoured baked crisp (for want of a better word); and a delicious and amazingly light carrot cake.  By this time we felt like snacking and knew it would be a long haul to dinner time so we all tucked in, some more than others (guilty as charged).

We set off just before five to the UFU - Uberlândia Federal University - where we met with the lecturer concerned and she also brought along two of her associates. We found out a lot of valuable information about NGOs in general that will be very helpful to us. They also offered for us to drop them emails if we find any other questions as we move on down our study.  Great people and we appreciated their generosity with their time in the evening.

Laerte arrived towards the end of the interview, around 6:40 or so, and was keen to take us to meet an associate who was at a business meeting across town so we all piled into his car and headed to the offices of the local business association - the ACIUB or Associaco Commercial e Industrial de Uberlândia  The people present are all senior business leaders and we were introduced to them by Laerte.  We settled down to watch proceedings for a while, I believe they were discussing the funding of some projects for children.

We then had to leave to get back to the Hotel for Brazil 14 team meeting that got underway around 8:15 (only 15 minutes later than advertised!) and which ended some time after 10 pm.  After that some went out to dinner but I decided that late night dinners are not doing me any good figure-wise or sleep-wise so opted out - hence my blog is up to date! Now to get to bed before midnight catches me up again.