Orr Fellowship - Brazil (Day 6-8: Sao Paulo --> Paratay, Paraty, and Paratay --> Rio de Janiero)

Oi,


Paraty, RJ

     On Saturday, we checked out of our Sao Paulo hotel to make the 5 hour bus ride to the secluded port of Paratay. No longer used as a primary port of commerce, Paratay underwent a few abandonments in its history. The major boom in Paratay's history was its use as a port during the gold rush in Menas Gerais in the late 1600s. The "Gold Trail" that lead inland from Paratay, made the city the primary port of commerce for export to Portugal for some 60 years. The last abandonment of the town occurred when pirates made the bay nearly impassible, so an alternative "Gold Trail" was forged from the Rio, taking beautiful Paratay off the map. Thankfully in the early 19th century, coffee and sugar cane booms, along with the establishment of a railroad from Rio to Sao Paulo via Paratay, made the city come alive again. Then in the 1970s, the first paved road passed near Paratay, making it a haven for tourists. Nowadays, 95% of the Paratay population relies on the business of tourism.

The blessing of a 50-year anniversary

    After getting in a quick run up the canal to the end of town and back, a handful of us went to mass on Saturday night which began at 7:30. It was a beautiful church, and we were able to enjoy it (for ~1h 45min) even though is was all in Portuguese. The process and prayers were the same, although I was completely lost during the readings, Gospel and homily. There was a lot of clapping, waving and gesturing that we don't see as much at home, but it was standing room only and we even got to see the blessing of a couple's 50-year anniversary, along with [what we thought was] a centenarian's birthday blessing.



NASCAR's race in Richmond
was on TV in the bar

Dancing in the town square

     From church, we exited to a town center full of what I would've called square dancing. It was neat to hear the live banjos, ukuleles and drums fill the streets on our way to dinner. Having had enough Feijoada and other Brazilian food over the last week, we opted for what turned out to be a very good menu of typical bar food. NASCAR was on in the bar (the U.S' FOX Sports broadcast dubbed over in Portuguese). The bartender said NASCAR has become more popular in South America since the emergence of Juan Pablo Montoya (a Columbian IndyCar driver originally) started racing in NASCAR.

 

From L: Mitch, me, Alec, Kevin,
Anthony and Conner

     Being a Saturday night, the town was alive with tourists late into the evening. The sounds of bossa nova (a mix of lively samba and smoother jazz) emanated from most bars. We grouped back up and enjoyed everyone's company over a few liters of Itaipava and Antartica (their domestic, light beers) to finish off the night.

 

     With Saturday night wrapping up early, I got up at a decent hour and got in a great run up and down the canal and around town, finishing up the last mile or two with a couple of other Fellows who awoke a little later to find their daily fitness. After cooling down and grabbing a bite from the hotel breakfast bar, we headed out for our day's activity: a schooner cruise. Boarding the boat in the Bay of Paratay, ours was at the end of the not-so-sturdy dock with all shapes and sizes of vessels along the way. We trotted out to a few different islands and tested the beaches, snorkeled around seeing some neat marine life and had a great lunch on-board. We all begrudgingly returned to port safe and sound, everyone doing remarkably well on the application/re-application of sunscreen knowing we have a lot of sun ahead of us in Rio). As we made our way back to the hotel, there was just shy of a roaring crowd in the town square. There was a gigantic BINGO game happening and it seemed like everyone on in town was there. An emcee would announce over the public address system the selections and the whole crowd would respond wit cheers/boos, making their approval/disheartenment clearly heard. It was a neat sight to see, and we learned that the game was held every Sunday with nearly everyone from the surrounding town making their way to the event.

 

The town-wide BINGO game in the sqare

     The night was spent touring the local artisans, street vendors and shoppes gathering precious (and not-so-precious) souvenirs to take back to the states. Dinner was had at a local microbrew/gastropub with a special of shadow steak sandwiches...and water, which had been a far-neglected choice throughout the day. Obviously many of the Fellows enjoyed the local brews, but none of them quite fit my "domestic, light, and cold" rule of 3.

 

     After packing up Sunday night and checking out Monday morning, we headed out on the road to Rio. It was another 5 hours on the bus which entailed a lot of napping and waking to stopping for road construction. Infrastructure development activity between the large metropolitan/tourist areas of Brazil is in full force with the coming of the World Cup '14 and the Olympics '16.

 

     Making it safe and sound to our hotel on Copacabana Beach (no Manilow, no Lola...) and marveled at the sights: the beautiful beach, mosaic-laden boardwalk, and the sun nearly setting. We had time to familiarize ourselves with the area around the hotel and grab some extra reais (pronounced "HEY-ice") from the ATM before calling it a night from the rooftop bar/pool/cabanas.

 

Obrigado,

Barry

 

 

 

 

    

Orr Fellowship - Brazil (Day 5: EFL & Cummins)

Oi,

     Friday was a great day filled with meetings. In the morning we met with Orr Fellowship alumni, DJ and Darrell who spearhead operations for the Entreprenuerial Finance Lab (EFL), a alternative credit evaluation option for lending institutions primarily for use in Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) loans. Since barriers to entry for entreprenurial organizations are often in the form of starting capital, EFL provides a great alternative to the traditional credit bureaus' evaluations of an SME's forecast of honoring their debts. Very much based in the psychology of the individuals leading these SMEs, EFL's software presense in lending institiutions worldwide has resulted in 50k instances of lending to SMEs that wouldn't have found funding in the traditional avenue of credit checks.

     After lunch, we made our way to Cummins where we had a great presentation from the Supply Chain Manager about Cummins' presence in Brazil and its standing as a global company. A neat tour of one of their engine manufacturing facilities followed with an introduction to one facet of their community initiative to improve their community: a sewing school/shop. There, they taught community members the ways of seamsters/seamstresses and paid them for their production of uniforms for the plant as well as items for resale to the Cummins employees. There has been a great response from the community to the center where the sewing school is located, so the waiting list for their classes is always full.

An employee runs a rack of assembled
pistons to the next line

Engine blocks await their assembly

     Friday saw another evening run through the park, which was a really neat sight to see - everyone was out and about. Post-run, we got cleaned up and then headed via taxi to a hole-in-the-wall, family-style Brazilian restaurant. It was quite the experience. We were the first patrons that evening, getting there at 7:30ish, but it filled as our meal progressed. The bartender was excited to have us, and made sure we all sampled a variety of cachacas (the most popular distilled liquor in Brazil, made from sugar cane). Our food order was recommended to us by our server, Christiano, whose English was very helpful. We ordered feijoada (considered the national dish) in its complete form. Feijoada is composed of primarily beans and meat, and can be traced back to the era of slavery in Brazil. The plantation owners would eat the rice, beans and "noble meats" (traditionally beef, pork and chicken) and then the dish would be passed to the slaves' quarters where the additions of the "complete" edition of the dish were made (feet, ears, nose, etc). A lot of the fatty, cartilaginous parts made their way onto our plates, one of which we were sure was a nose - not tasty.

Obrigado,
Barry

Orr Fellowship - Brazil (Day 4: State Department & free afternoon)

Oi,

     Thursday we heard from David Arnold, the Environmental Science Health and Safety officer stationed by the U.S State Department in Sao Paulo. His primary function is to track, understand and report the economic/business climate of Brazil to Washington. From his findings, the necessary appropriations are made to capitalize on our stately relations with Brazil. It was interesting hearing his take on Brazil's economy (7th in the world, projected 5th after next year's World Cup is hosted here). They have a far greater disparity in wealth distribution that we do in the U.S and the state of Sao Paulo accounts for 40% of it. The Sao Paulo consulate is the largest US-visa throughput in the world. Interestingly, because of the Brazil Cost referenced from "Day 2", Brazilians travel to the U.S (often Miami or Disney) and spend $6B on consumer goods that would be much more expensive in Sao Paulo, Rio, etc. David has lived an interesting life starting with the Peace Corps out of college which landed him in a very remote area of Honduras, then into the U.S State Department for two years in Columbia executing visa interviews, then Mozambique as an eCommerce officer, Kabul for 13 mos., and now Sao Paulo.

After our meeting with David, we had a free afternoon. In that time, a group of us headed back to Ibirapuera Park for a good jog, a light workout and frisbee capped off with a maracuja (passionfruit)smoothie. Late lunch put us at a pizza place close to our hotel where a group of 11 tore through 5 large, interesting pizzas with everything from egg and proscuito to tomato and pineapple.

Thursday night got a little out of control with us all taking the subway to an area of Sao Paulo that would've compared to Broad Ripple in Indy, with a strip of bars for us to enjoy as a group. We never found that area, but we did establish ourselves as a solid 75% of some other divebar's revenue. We shot quarters and shared family/school/work stories as the hours rolled on and found ourselves back to the hotel all accounted for around 12:30am.

Obrigado,
Barry

Orr Fellowship - Brazil (Day 3: Exact Target & Sao Paulo)

Oi,
Wednesday brought our first business meeting, one that would introduce us to the South American arm of Indianapolis-based e-mail marketer Exact Target (ET). Edson Barbieri, co-founder of Frontier Digital, a Sao Paulo IT firm whose origin was as an internet service provider, told us about his entrepreneurial past and how it culminated with an acquisition by ET. He has a great story and shared with his insight into the Brazilian economic climate and the advantages and challenges of doing business in Latin America.


Some of Frontier Digital's customers pre-ET acquisition

    
Edson Barbieri bulletpoints:

• ET LATAM (ET and the rest of the world regard Brazil as part of Latin America, but Brazilians don't identify themselves as Latin Americans, but Brazilians) has 72 employees with customers in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Paraguay and other South American countries.
• "The Brazil Cost" is a recognized cost of time/money caused by layers and layers of bureaucracy and seemingly unreasonable, sometimes compounding taxes (as high as 65% on automobiles).
• Economic classes A-E, with only the upper classes (A, B, C+) being tracked and paying income taxes, which gave birth to some of the higher transactional tax rates.
• Hurdles Brazil faces to keeping it's strong global presence (and build on the momentum they have leading up to the World Cup '14 and Olympics '16)
• Investment in infrastructure such as roads/public transport (both of which are under developed for the sheer amount amount of people - ~11M in metro Sao Paulo)
• Investment in the eduction and skilled workers as that sector's growth hasn't kept pace with the technical/economic growth of Brazil in the last 10 years.

After our discussion with Edson, we went to Ibirapura Park where we went to the AfroBrazilian museum (everything in Portuguese with little help from folks in our group who can read Spanish). The one thing that stuck out in my mind was the fact that Brazil was later to abolish slavery (1880s) and captured 10x more slaves from Africa than were transported to the US (5M to .5M). The rest of the time in the park was spent on walking paths and enjoying people watching as it seemed the park was a place to see and be seen.

Me and Kevin @ Ibirapuera Park

Maisia (guide) and Fellows (Bre, Kelly, Jamie, Conner
and Mitch at Luz Station

St. Paul and the Municipal Cathedral of Sao Paulo

    


















     We got back on the bus and headed to the Japanese-settled part of town, Liberdade. From Liberdade we made a walk to the oldest portion of Sao Paulo where we found the Municipal Cathedral of Sao Paulo and the original train hub, Luz Station, built from the fortunes of the state's original coffee exports.

Dinner was at a Brazilian steakhouse very similar to Fogo de Chao, all you can eat meat cut fresh from giant skewers that the servers carried table to table. Post-dinner we got back tot he hotel and everyone enjoyed the evening on the roof with a few drinks and music accompanied by some great conversation and catching up.

Obrigado,
Barry

Orr Fellowship - Brazil (Days 1-2: Travel/Sao Paulo)

     Oi ("Hi" in Portuguese), from Sao Paulo. Had a great travel day on Monday starting with on-time flights from IND to Detroit, where we found our Boeing 767 at the gate and ready to take us on the 10hr40min trek to Sao Paulo. With uneventful travel getting us here on Tuesday morning and everyone (20 Orr Fellows) making it successfully through immigration and baggage claim, we boarded our coach and made the 40min (turned 1h30min) ride across gridlocked Sao Paulo streets. Sounds like it could be much worse, but Brazilian law dictates the amount of vehicles permitted on city streets during rush hour on certain days (as arranged by the starting digits of your license plate number).


My man (roommate) Mitch

     We made it to our hotel around 10:30a local time (1h ahead of EST), and were assigned rooms. After we carted baggage up to our rooms, and taking a look at the rooftop pool/patio, we headed out for an afternoon of exploration. A group of us enlisted the help of our travel coordinator's husband in getting us across town to the Museu do Futebol and Municipal Stadium where one of the city's league teams is headquartered. After a good 8-block climb, we made it to a subway stop that would save us another couple miles' walk in getting closer to L'Estadio Municipal.


(counter-clockwise from Mitch) EJ, Kevin, Kelly,
Conner, and Goberto enjoying lunch at the market

     Arriving at the stadium, we were lucky enough to find a market in the parking lot with fresh fruit, veggies, sugar cane drinks and "pastels" (think Hot Pocket of freshly deep-fried dough filled with your choice of meats/cheeses). With satisfied appetites we headed into the museum and took in a couple hours of the history of the game we call soccer. Not being a huge fan of soccer, it was still an intriguing experience. We learned about how the game was brought over by European immigrants and enjoyed by the upper class for years before the working class was able to take part. From there, its widespread adoption as the national sport happened rapidly and is now part of the fabric of the country.



(From L) Anthony, EJ, Kevin and Mitch

     On our way back to the hotel we stopped at the grocery store (just a block away from the hotel) to grab some bottled water, and other food/drink to keep us energized between meals). The hotel gym was sufficient for a nice bike/jog workout before cleaning up for dinner. We grouped up for dinner in the hotel restaurant where we enjoyed fish, beef, and chicken along with rice and noodles. Those dishes were preceded by appetizers like bruschetta, assorted breads/jams and a full salad bar. I was a little lost without traditional salad dressings I'm accustomed to. I'm told most salads in Brazil are topped (if at all) with only an oil or vineagar dressing. Dessert was fresh fruit salad and lime mousse with passionfruit cake and others I didn't have the stomach capacity to even entertain the possibility of eating.

     After some words from our local expert on the area, to-do's, not to-do's, etc., we ventured with a local Exact Target team member to a coffee shop/bar/restaurant/convenience store and enjoyed the evening on the outdoor patio. Activity dwindled ~11p and we all headed back to tank up on sleep for many days left here in Sao Paulo.

Obrigado ("Thanks"),
Barry