Work Day Nineteen - the penultimate powerpoint presentation (a penúltima apresentação powerpoint)

When I reached the lobby today all was revealed as to why there had been a number of giants in the breakfast room over the last few days.

I used to think I was tall but now I realise in the Volleyball world I am just a shrimp!

Today our morning tasks were to do a final check and rehearsal for a presentation we were to deliver to some reviewers from IBM and others in the afternoon and to finalise the presentation to the Mayor of Uberlândia and other leaders on Friday morning. We also had a few minor revisions to make to our master presentation and some housekeeping to make sure all final versions of all our work was safely stored somewhere.  As I subscribe to the philosophy that the more copies you have the better, our work is stored (securely) just about everywhere I could find.

The morning passed quite quickly, so quickly that lunchtime came and went before we were ready for it. As our visitors were close to arriving we missed a final trip to our local (and good) kilo restaurant.   Laerte was the first, as he had some ONG CASA business to attend to first, and then we were joined by Larissa and one of the reviewers. Bruno and another reviewer were delayed so we decided to make a start, with the other arriving shortly after. The presentation went well and we felt we answered all the questions the reviewers had for us.

After the reviewers had left we rehearsed the Friday presentation and then declared the day a success and were back in the hotel not long after 4.  We'd arranged with Mariana that we would go to the large country club in Uberlândia, Praia Clube.  They claim it is the largest country club in South America and I am not about to challenge that - it certainly covers a large area and near the centre of town too. So Mariana and her Mum came past around 5:30 to collect us and off we went.  

When we go there we met up with Izadore, our other translator, and a couple of friends of the others. We started off with a tour of the facilities.  First stop was a games hall where they were playing Peteca, a game that was apparently played socially by competitors in the 1920 Olympics when the Brazilian team introduced it to them.  It's a cross between volleyball and badminton, played with a shuttlecock which you hit with your hand - we had a quick knock-about and it seemed like good fun. Apparently Uberlândians are pretty good at it.

The shuttlecock and courts in the background

 We then left the hall and went for a walk in the grounds - Praia Clube certainly has extensive grounds and is well situated beside the river, which they have cleverly Incorporated into their design and facilities.

Looking up the river from a bridge, designed to look like a boat

From the bridge we walked down to a park which had a jogging track around it.  One of our guides, Edgar, said that in the daytime the local community of capybaras had become such a pest they'd had to put in special fences so they wouldn't get in the road of the runners.  Of course at this point we had to go on a capybara hunt, even although it was now dusk.  We didn't spot any adults but Edgar heard two small junior capybara in the undergrowth and eventually they came out into the open to pose for me.

After that they headed off to the capybara fence and wriggled through it to get into the main park - it may restrain the adults but not the kids!

From there we went back up through a complex of large (25 and 50 metre) swimming pools, a huge indoor sport arena with multiple courts for training volleyball (apparently the local women's team is pretty strong) and other court sports, a large indoor soccer complex with lots of small boys developing their skills (some of them were pretty handy), and some more leisure type pools.

Just part of the court complex - huge!!

It was still quite warm so we stopped for an ice-cold coconut water - they keep them in the freezer and open to order - delicious!

We then headed up to the restaurant - given that Mariana and the three of us from the SEDE project had missed out on lunch we were definitely interested in eating (we survived on a packet of Karen's biscuits and half a very nice cake Mariana had brought in a day or two before - all right, not exactly bread and water but not far from it when you are used to a large plate of salad and meat each day!).  There was a large pool next to the restaurant so Michael and I had a very refreshing swim first - cool but pleasant water.

Trying the mixed beer

We tried a new kind of Chopp (a Chopp is draught beer), mixing a dark beer and lager - it was fine, but I'd have liked to try the dark beer on its own.  The beer was so cold there ice floating in it - they really like their beer cold in Brazil.

For food we had a selection of cheese and meat pastels to start - that's like large ravioli but fried and you can actually taste and see the filling - followed by a table-top grill of a mix of meat, vegetables and manioc - very tasty and satisfying.

And then sadly it was time to head home, with our taxi dropping Mariana off on the way.  A lovely evening and great company, very interesting and informative, and seeing some wildlife I am unlikely to see by a river in NZ!

#ibmcsc brazil