At Home on the Farm

Bom Dia Illinois! Good morning in Portuguese. Our morning yesterday started out just as early as our first in Curitiba, we were on the road at 7:30 on our way to the Municipal Market. It looked like a Saturday morning market in the states with two major differences; their market is everyday at this indoor gym like facility, and they have much, much more fruit to choose from. Nadial allowed us to have a half an hour or so here to look around and just what all they had to offer. It seemed to me that most of the venders were more on the side of retailing, than farmers selling items, because of the diversity of and number of fruits and vegetables that they had for sale. But Nadial said it was a little bit of both. He had us try some eacalyptus (?) honey, which had bite to it, not quite as sweet, and a little bitter.

During the morning we also had a surprise stop to the Botanical Gardens, which was not on the itinerary, but were able to squeeze in an hour around this downtown Curitiba park. It was a very nice, green, central park and it was good to get out and walk for awhile after being on a bus so long.

The rest of the morning consisted of a tour of a veternarian hospital. After viewing the facility we left Curitiba and finally made it out into the country. We saw soybeans and corn along the roadside, but it looks nothing like Illinois do to the hilly terrain. It almost had a Wisconsin feeling to it, however, perhaps a little more undulated. It would be a challenge to drive a tractor on the hills which the Brazillians farm.

Our next visit was a Mennonite cooperative in Witmarsum. The mennonite pepole came from a Germany and after much persecution eventually made their way to Brazil. We spent most of our time at a dairy farm, which I considered very clean compared to some of my neighbors dairy farms back home.

The highlight of the day was our visit to the home of Mauricio Teresawa. Mauricio who is currently working on his PhD at the Uniersity of Illinois, prepared a marvelous dinner for us. We enjoyed more barbecue and Brazilian cuisine on his elegent home in downtown Ponta Grossa.

Right now we are leaving for FT Semente, the seed corn company that the Terasawa family owns and operates. It will be interesting to hear what they are working on.