Varginha

  Yesterday we had to go to this city that is about 100 km outside of Lavras called Varginha. We had to go there because this closest place to Lavras that has a federal police station. As part of our visa requirements we had to register with the federal police within 30 days of our arrival. The first part to registering required us to go to their website and fill out a couple forms. After we filled them out we had to print them and take them to a bank where we were charged just under R200 and given some receipts. We then had to physically go to a federal police station with the receipts and all of our official documents ( passports, visas, ect.). We rented a car and our portuguese professor drove us to Varginha and acted as our interpreter. Once we got there, there were more forms to fill out while the lady helping us checked out all of the documents we brought with us. After every thing was thoroughly filled out we were fingerprinted then told we had to go back into the city to get our pictures taken in a passport photo fashion. We hopped in the car, drove back into town, and found a parking spot around the central square. After about 20 minutes or so of running around the city we found a place that would be able to take and print our pictures. After getting our pictures taken we ran back to the car and drove back to the station. When we got back the woman had some delightful news for us. I messed up my visa some how and my visa was going to expire a month before everyone else. Along with this Katie only gave the woman one of the two receipts that we had printed out the day before. Katie then proceeded to frantically search for her second receipt in her bag and out in the car while I talked to the woman helping us about what I could do to fix my visa expiring a month early. While Katie wasn't able to find her receipt the woman told me I could apply for a visa extension to cover the extra time I needed. In order to fix Katie's problem we had to rush back into the city again and find a bank where she had to pay again for her missing form. We found a bank and took care of the form then headed back to the station where I ran in with the receipt.
    Having taken care of the police business we went back into the city, for the fourth time now, for some lunch before we left. So far this trip has had many frustrations such as this. To give a recent example this past thursday the girls were forced to find an alternative place to live. Originally they were staying with this girl named Daniela who was a friend of Bruno. Bruno is one of the Brasilians who are currently living in the US. Bruno actually was the one who set up housing for all four of us. Regardless, Daniela lives in what is called a republica. We don't really have republicas in the US but the closest thing I would be able to compare it to is a sorority house only in an apartment building. The girls were staying in Daniela's room, which isn't that big, and Daniela was sleeping on the floor in another room. Being that it is summer vacation here right now there were not that many girls living in the republica when we first arrived. After a few weeks more girls started showing up and the republica started becoming more crowded. On top of this we found out that Daniela was six months pregnant and had been sleeping on the ground while she gave her bed to one of the girls. She had been very successfully hiding it from us. This finally became an issue earlier this week. This weekend is graduation for the students at UFLA so some of the girls at the republica were having their family come stay there. This meant there wasn't enough room for Katie and Carrie or even Daniela to stay at the republica. All three of them were relocated to one of our other friends apartments which wasn't in much better of a shape. Earlier in the week the girls were explaining their situation to our portuguese professor who felt it was his responsibility to help them out. We went through as many housing options as we could find. We discussed everything from the girls living in our professors apartment to living with us in the Baviara. Eventually we were able to find a place for the girls in this woman's house. The woman has a bunch of extra rooms that she rents out to college girls and had a couple spots open for Carrie and Katie. The director of our program here in Lavras, Cristina, was the one who found it. Until now this was the most helpful she has been.
  This is an issue that has plagued this program since the beginning. While on paper this is a marvelous program, in actuality it is very poorly organized. There is little to no communication either between us and the people running the program or between the people running the program themselves. From the beginning all we were told was, you get to go to Brasil and you are being given $5000 to do it. We had to enroll in a few courses and that was about it. All the information we got was from the two people who went to Brasil last year and even then it was quite minimal. We have had to figure every thing out for ourselves. Normally this wouldn't be such a bad thing if we knew that's what we would have to do. The exception here is that we weren't told we would have to figure every thing out for ourselves. We were initially led to believe every thing was already set and we would just have to follow what they told us we needed to do. This whole experience has been riddled with hidden fees and obligations we didn't know about.
   With as much complaining as I am doing I still absolutely love being here in Brasil. Our program may be dropping the ball but the people here have been absolutely amazing in helping us. Our professor has been the most helpful. He has been helping us with every thing we could need. He was even willing to give the girls his apartment while he went to live with his girlfriend. So far I have seen nothing less from any other person here. As frustrated and angry as I may get with where this program has left us, all I have to do is spend some time with my Brasilian friends and it all seems better.

Premeiro Post

   So this is my first post. I am not a blogger by nature, I do not follow any blogs and I have never written one. This is out side of the chronicled journeys of Baby of course. For those of you who don't know this is my friends stuffed doll. Quite a good blog but I am getting beside myself.
   I have been here in Brasil for about three weeks now (I refuse to spell Brasil the silly American way now with the z rather than the s). Brasil in one word would be amazing. Things are different yet similar here. The people are all extremely friendly and they do have a lot of the things that we have in the States. The culture is different but isn't a far stretch from what I am used to. The food is amazing to say the least. You will never taste fresher and more flavorful fruit until you visit Brasil. The only complaint I do have about the food here is that they eat too much cheese... my bowls were having a hard time coping with the diet for the first week or so.
  I traveled with three other people here to Brasil. One boy, Joe, and two girls, Carrie and Katy. Between the four of us we have made plenty of friends and have done a decent amount of traveling for only being in the country for three weeks. I have plenty of pictures of my travels so far posted on my facebook page. Since I am assuming mostly family and friends are going to be following this blog you can just look me up there for now. Once I figure this blog thing out more I will post more pictures here.
  Just to give an overview of the program I am doing, I started by applying November of '09. This is when I first found out that I was going to go to Basil. The following semester I was required to enroll in POR 101. This was an elementary Portuguese language course. This last fall semester I took an other Portuguese course in addition to an online course on Sustainable Entrepreneurship. This Sustainable Entrepreneurship is what the whole program is based on. Northern Michigan University is working with another university in Illinois along with two universities here in Brasil, UFLA and UFRA (Universidade Federal Lavras da Amazonia and Universidade Federal Rural da Amazonia). The way the program works is they send Brasilian students to the United States at the beginning of this last fall semester. They will remain in the US until mid February. We arrived here in Brasil on the 6th of January and will not return to the US until mid August. Currently we are taking an intense Portuguese language course at UFLA. This course will last until February 11th for Carrie and myself. That weekend Carrie and I will be traveling to the north of Brasil to a larger city called Belem. This is where UFRA is located. Joe and Katy will remain here in Lavras to enroll in a semester at UFLA. Once the semester is over all of us will be doing an internship with a business. Carrie, Katy, and myself will do this internship in Belem while Joe will remain in the south in Lavras. This is also the reason why the Brasilian students who are currently in the US are staying until the middle of February. They have internships of their own and semesters don't match up exactly between Brasil and the US.
   But this is a lot of writing for now. All I wanted to do was give a brief overview for now. I plan on blogging more and explaining the rest of my experience if full. Hopefully you guys will follow along! I plan on using this somewhat as a journal for myself so I plan on updating frequently!