Team Story

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For the review program in Poland (we're not there yet, still in Brazil), we need to prepare a "team story" around the experience in Brazil. Much of the leadership ecucation is focused around this responsible leadership model introduced in an earlier post (see the pic below). As you can see, we (Didier and I) are the "self" at the center, with our stakeholders surrounding us on this integrated platform. We wanted to take this model, and incorporate the educational process into our team story, which we of course lived over the past 2 months. We also worked to integrate this Ulysses leadership model into the PwC Experience and our global network so we can bring back to our offices and "live the learning" when done with this program.


How did this drawing arise? We didn't prepare, but Hans Jorgen (one of the excellent Ulysses facilitators pictured below) w/some other story boards did.


As such, you might ask, what then are we creating? Below is a rough draft.


Below is a more refined picture we plan to use on our team story board when in Poland to reflect upon the ecucational experience and share the journey with our fellow Ulysses teams from the other countries, as well as with our executive coach. Most likely, this means more to us than you and it's hard to explain in a few sentences in this blog. Also, as we're consultants, we of course prepared 2 different slide decks (about 10 slides each) with more formal commentary on the leadership education, the theory around the concepts, and with references to separate reading material. We hope to share these slide decks with a description of how the Ulysses journey fits into the PwC Experience and our global network when back in our offices. The goal is to bring some of what we learned into our offices and our teams, so everyone benefits.

Are we happy with the Ulysses journey in Brazil?

Yes - so far, the program is/has exceeded our expectations. We're truly impressed. Having the time to reflect and develop ourselves (a rare occasion) helps. This pic is in Pampulha, near a lake in Belo Horizonte.

Aracuai buildings and landscape

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Below are a few pictures of the landscape, the river, the houses, and a few backyard scenes from Aracuai. The terrain is rolling hills cut by 2 rivers. The area is semi-arid w/little rain in the winter and very hot, 40 deg C plus summers. When we visited, the temperature was around 30 deg C and very dry. Even though this pic shows clouds, not a drop of rain fell from the sky.

Here you can see the dry vegetation.

Below is one of the rivers, the Aracuai, used for everything from drinking water to washing clothes on the rocks.

So, you might ask how does this wonderful permaculture garden partly sponsored by CPCD remain so green?

Because this outhouse looking building is actually a electric pump house that protects the water pump from the weather. The light blue pipes carry the water up from the river to the green garden. The pump house is about 20 feet above the level of the river, as the water rises in flash floods during the summer.

Below is a very old house made from a wood pole frame and mud.

Here is another house w/a tarp for a window and a tin roof, plus crosses painted in white on the sides.

This is a more modern building using concrete, rebar and brick with wood pole supports.

We caught this pic of a geodesic type dome structure made of bamboo, behind the cactus. Not sure what this is doing here though...
A typical scene from the street. Below are seeds from a tree drying in the sun on a blue tarp.

This pic shows the seeds with flexible thorns upclose when dried (we forget the name). The red seeds are used as a dye, and at the coop in the mix of paint, which stained Stan's finger.

Stan feeds the calf fried manjiorca in the garden behind one of the houses in the community. Behind are banana trees.

A pic of another back yard, this one w/a chicken coop under the roof.
Here's another backyard scene. These chickens are penned up behind the chicken wire.


One of the various dogs laying in the shade.

Didier looks around the street scene.

Didier and some of our group walking down the road. We're passing thru a gate and barbed wire fence used to keep the livestock from wandering too far from the community.
Hanging out in the tree - time to go.


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Aracuai coop

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We toured the coop in Aracuai, similar to the Curvelo location in an earlier posting of this blog. Outside is the sign painted by the coop members (teenagers in training) as well as some of the artwork. The guitar playing guy below is made from old discarded automobile parts. Note the body is a muffler, the hat is a disc brake rotor, the guitar a clutch plate and pressure plate, and legs/arms exhaust pipes. Very creative w/just free materials, a welder and cutting torch.
We posed with artwork painted by these coop members using earth tints and wood. Note we write the word "posed" as we're not artisitc enough to actually do the painting ourselves. The wood is prepped with a whitewash, then painted with paint made from glue and different colored dirt or ground stone or ground seeds from trees / leaves. Stan touched the red seed dust from some local tree (can't recall the name) and couldn't wash off the dye. The result is impressive.

Here members of the coop wood and metal shops sketch a drawing for a new bench design.
We watch as raw green bamboo is treated with a propane torch to dry the skin and essentially carmalize the sugar in the skin. This prevents cracking, infestation by ants and termites, and strengthens the bamboo.Another creative member of the cooperative, Nelio, who is learning English and spoke at length with us (in English) while in Aracuai. He also plays the guitar, and writes music.
The hand painted welcome sign to the coop's permaculture garden hangs on the chicken wire, to literally keep out the free range chickens and other wandering animals. It's hard to see in the pic, but the letters are in black, while the heart is in a deep red - another thoughtful touch to the coop's work.
In an unbiased effort to control our propaganda, recall again the website for the wares of the coop:

www.dedodegente.com.br

Women at Work

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Our project in Brazil w/CPCD (our NGO) is very challenging. Recall we caught Stan "resting", or better yet reflecting upon difficult issues and reconciling differences, in a prior post. So challenging is our project that 2 of our NGO hosts, who we mentioned earlier in this blog, were also caught sleeping. This one is Flavia, and to be fair, is on the weekend in Ponte Nova (about 2 hours west of BH by car).
This one is of Dora, the CPCD director, in a hammock at a farm near Curvelo (town of the other CPCD office about 2.5 hours north of BH by car).

The market in Aracuai

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At first glance, this pic might look like sausage, but a closer look at the lighters and separate manufactured cigarettes gives away the fact that this is a rural style of rope tobacco. Most people here don't buy pre-made cigarettes. Instead, the tobacco leaves are harvested, fermented / aged, and twisted together into a tight, sticky (from the tar), dark brown rope that is sold in chunks. You take some dried corn husk, cut into a rectangular shape, chop up some rope tobacco, and role your own cigarette.

Bags of spices and seeds harvested from local plants. The boy is showing Carol how to use a unique bird call whistle. This one is truly unique, we hadn't seen this before, and it took us about 15 minutes to figure out the method, while the boy (who by the way carved the whistles by hand out of wood) patiently explained the bird call process.
Hand carved wooden bowls, axe handles, and mortar/pestle combinations. Notice the size of the one in the foreground. People grind corn and other grains by hand...
Hand carved wooden spoons out of different woods. This one is hard to see, but the chicken in the woman's hand is alive, w/feet tied together, hanging upside down.
How do you catch fish in the local Aracuai river or the Jequitinhonha river and bring to market w/o ice or refridgeration? You pray that you sell the fish quickly...

More produce, bananas, and meat on the grill.
The plastic drink bottles for sale here don't look like Coca Cola because the bottles are at the market refilled with the local liquor, Cachaca, a sugar cane white rum. New clean bottles are in short supply, or too expensive.
Garlic, lots of garlic. People also use smaller wooden mortar and pestles to grind up garlic w/salt into a paste that is used for cooking.
These are the raw sugar bricks (not wrapped, not weighed, no list of ingredients, and w/o a USDA stamp) named "rapadura" from our earlier blog post - now for sale at the market for about R$4.00 or R$5.00 each. The raw sugar tastes wonderful in coffee, or you can even eat chunks as a desert candy. We asked ourselves, do we really need all the plastic wrap, bags - all that we throw away later?
More about fascinating Aracuai to come.

Getting around in Aracuai

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So how does one travel in the rural areas? As you would expect, by all means imaginable. Close to Stan's heart is the bicycle, and here are a couple guys riding to town on their bikes.
The horse is always an option, and many people own horses as the rural roads are dirt, rough, hilly and many times not amenable to cars or trucks. The horse walked thru the river below (see the pic of the "golden gate" bridge) and up the steep river bank. The bridge is too fragile for the horse. You can see the cable terminus and the wooden bridge towers that anchor the suspension cables in the dirt ground.
This pic shows the interesting contrast between centuries old transport (the mule here) and the newer motorcycle, both parked in the available, precious shade.
This canoe pic is about 20 KM outside of Aracuai, near another community named Itira. The hand made canoe, assembled from planks with gaps sealed with tar, is the public ferry used to cross the Aracuai river. The guy w/the stick doesn't paddle, but poles the canoe across the river in the dry season. The river rises about 6 to 10 feet in rainy season, hence the long pole. We took this pic after crossing - note the waiting passengers on the other side.
Of course you can always walk. We nicknamed this the "golden gate" as it is a suspension bridge over this river for foot traffic. Note the Indiana Jones style rotten planks and Carol, who is posing for the pic, attempting to keep her balance.
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Sugar

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These pictures demonstrate one method of making sugar from sugar cane in Aracuai. The field in the background is sugar cane. The people under the tent are mostly watching, while 2 of the guys do the work.

This equipment runs a gear driven rolling press to squeeze the cane into juice.

This copper cauldron over a wood fire in a clay pit contains the raw cane juice that boils out the excess water.
This glass contains the deep green cane juice cooled enough to drink. It's not too sweet at this stage and actually tastes good.Here are the bricks of "rapadura", or cooled raw sugar for sale in the market for $4.00 per brick.
We'll post more pics of the market later.

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