A little Iracambi orientation to better explain my next 6 months in Brasil.

This post seems to have been added to by volunteers and researchers over the years who have come from various countries and continents around the world. If you figure Portland is about 10 hours to the north of San Fran you can see that I am about 11,000 KMS away from home.My house it the Casa Azul (blue house) on the left and to the right of mine is Toni's a Spaniard who is working in the plant/tree nursery here at Iracambi and has been here about 10 months.Here is my room which is not much to look at but certainly more quiet and private than my accommodation in South Africa but I don't have the fast internet access like I had at ETC nor do I have Doug or Ben to make me laugh.
This is the "living room to my house, my room being the one to the right and the other is where Muffi a volunteer arriving soon will be staying for about a month.Here is the glorious view from the front of the house. I can see this just by opening the front door and sitting at my desk in my room and working in my computer. You can see the large area where erosion is taking place. Erosion is a huge problem in Brasil due to deforestation and I am sure I will write more in coming blogs about this and what is being done to try and fix this problem.
Another view of the valley and hills across the river. This one is taken from the Centro (Center) which is the main communal space where most volunteers live. The greenish building to the left is the kitchen which has an open air but covered dining area on the far side that has a nice view of the river, pastures, etc.
This is Marcelo who is in charge of the medicinal plant project and has been working at Iracambi for about two years now. His wife and daughter live in Sao Paulo which is about 14 hours away by bus and he sees them about once a month.
Marcelo is at the far left and the other people are community members (plus one volunteer) who were attending last Saturdays medicinal plant workshop that Marcelo holds about once a week in which community members can participate. This is part of Iracambi’s community outreach and attempt to create environmentally friendly and sustainable alternative income generating projects for community members.

Alexandre is the volunteer on the left who is here for about a month from Sao Paulo and is studying music at university. In addition to being a musician he is an artist, creative and friendly person. In the middle is Gustavo who appears to be the person on the Iracambi staff who I will be working the closest with. He is from the south of Minas Gerais, the state we live in, and is here for a year as part of his university studies in ecotourism. The boy in the back is one of the community members who participated in the medicinal plants workshop on Saturday. On the right is Rosa-Virginia who is an International Education grad student with me at the School for International Training. She is here for a few months to help with the environmental education program that Iracambi does to increase the community’s awareness of our presence and get the community more involved in protecting and caring for the land, forest, etc.

Some of the participants of workshop weighing the leaves of one of the plants that Marcelo had been discussing.

Here is someone’s laundry being dried on the line with the hills across the way in the background. As long as it isn’t raining this method of drying is very effective and many of us also have lines in our homes in the event that it is raining. Here is a lovely sunset pic that I just took a few hours ago. I think it won’t rain tonight but the clouds with the last rays of sun hitting them looked rather lovely. What a difference a few thousand kilometers makes moving from Johannesburg, South Africa to Iracambi, Brasil. Here I see maybe one car a day, don’t really have to worry about personal safety or the safety of my possessions and get to breath fresh air most all the time