InC - The Echo September 2013

International Club of Rio de Janeiro

www.incrio.org.br September 2013

General Meeting Tuesday, September 24 Clube Federal

1

Presidents First Word

2

September Cafezinhos

3

Thursty Thursday

4

Gourmet Cooking Event

5

Portuguese Cafezinho

6

Events

7

Charity Focus - Villa project

8

Charity Focus - The Solidarity Wave

9-10

Tales of the Amazon

11-12

Vassouras - City of Coffee Baron

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Our Calendar

14

Those who make the InC happen

Stay in touch Like us on facebook

WWW.INCRIO.ORG.BR

Go to our website for more events and news

first word

Hello Everyone!

September is the month when say good by to the Brazilian winter and the InC Rio welcomes back all our international members who have spent a glorious summer in the Northern Hemisphere. We hope you enjoyed yourselves and are now ready to return to the Rio scene. This month the InC has lots of activities and new things for you to try.

It is close enough for a weekend get away and is both educational and entertaining.

Our special treat this month is, our Gourmet Cooking Class and Candlelight Dinner

We have a very special evening planned with French Chef David Mansaud, who trained under the world renowned Alain Ducasse in Paris and is executive chef at the You won't want to miss our cafezinhos .

Estacio de Sa University here in Rio. David Please notice that we will be starting earlier will be teaching some very special French at 9:30 and finishing at noon. This is to alcuisine techniques and serving us an elelow the moms with school age children to gant 3 coarse dinner accompanied by fine be able to enjoy a bit of free time before wines. they need to pick up the little ones. Our Portuguese Cafezinho will be at the Clube Fed- Susan and Michael Loveland will be openeral, lunch will be served right afterward so ing their beautiful home with a stunning please stay and enjoy the beautiful view. view of the ocean and golf coarse at Golden Green in Barra for this super treat. Space is We will be hosting two happy hours, one strictly limited to ten couples and filling up each in Zona Sul and in Barra. A great mo- quickly. ment for some easy conversation, drinks and food. Feel free to bring your friends Read all about these great events in this who may not yet be familiar with the InC. issue of the Echo which you are free to share with your friends.

I hope you will enjoy the travel stories and photos Marla will be sharing of her and Hope to see you at all our fun and easy Claudius's trip to the Pantanal. events where I can guarantee you will meet some amazing people, share in some Raf Kiss will be telling us about some of unique experiences that will make your stay Brazil's hidden gems. Until the end of the in Rio a memorable one. year, he will be letting us in on some great stories of beautifully historic places that he My best to you all, has discovered on his travels to places off Bonnie Kobert Harrison the tourist trail. This month he will take you President, International Club Rio back in time as he focuses on Vassouras, the city of the coffee barons.

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Cafezinhos

Date: Tuesday, September 10th NEW TIME: 9:30 am Location: Jane Woods Home in Lagoa RSVP: Jane at janeandleswood@yahoo.com

Date: September 17th NEW TIME: 9:30 am Location: Robyn Thompsons home in Barra RSVP: Robyn at retho55@hotmail.com September 2013 The ECHO

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Events

Inspired by a famous American highway linking East to West, has a really cool, saloon-type dÊcor mixed with 50’s memorabilia.

Wide ranging menu with Tex-Mex and beyond, and great Mega Drinks for Happy Hour.

Lots of fun at a really lively place - see you there!

Leblon, Rua Conde Bernadotte, 26, lojas B e C - Rio de Janeiro.

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Events

We have a very special evening planned with French Chef David Mansaud, who trained under the world renowned Alain Ducasse in Paris and is executive chef at the Estacio de Sa University here in Rio. He will be teaching some very special French cuisine techniques and serving us an elegant dinner accompanied by fine wines.

Saturday September 14th 5:30 pm Cooking class and Cocktails 8:00 pm Dinner Golden Green - Barra

Costs 2:30 hour cooking class (only one spouse will be cooking) Optional happy hour cocktails for the aspiring cooks and spouses, per person Dinner- including an appetizer, main dish, and dessert accompanied by fine wines to harmonize with the meal, per person

R$ 90 R$ 35 R$ 105

RSVP president@incrio.org.br or call 7281 1866

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Cafezinho

Cafezinho Portuguese!

We will encourage you to speak Portuguese and practice your new learned language skills. We also encourage you to bring along friends who might be interested in joining but might be shy about speaking English

Enjoying the time with new friends?! Stay for lunch and get a special price of R$18 per person.

Clube Federal Please RSVP to Liliana at membership@incrio.org.br

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Events

Please join us for a great time at the end of a lazy weekend for a friendly chat and some great food and drinks! Please bring your spouses and children so we can meet the whole family!

Sunday, September 22 4:00 pm Location to be determined

Join us for coffee and a very interesting and eye opening presentation from Onda Solidรกria CEO Ricardo Calรงado.

Read more about his work on the next page.

September 24th 9:30 am Clube Federal - Alto Leblon September 2013 The ECHO

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Charity Focus

The objective is to create an Eco-village in the region of Santana do Deserto, in the mountains behind Rio de Janeiro. The focus will be on personal development, education, citizenship, environmental sustainability and concepts of organic food and promotion of good health. Sports, arts and culture will also be integrated with care for the environment.

Ricardo Calรงado will be our speaker at the General Meeting in September and will be telling us all about this interesting project.

If you want to know more about this program please visit their website: www.ondasolidaria.org

Last year we participated as individuals to sponsor the children involved in the Villa ProAs an agent of social transformation, the pro- ject with Christmas gifts and clothes. Solidarject aims to include the surrounding commu- ity Wave will have another big Christmas nities, national and international volunteers, party for them this year, on December 8. and its residents.

We will organize the sponsorship again this Ricardo Calรงado, the president of the NGO, year and will have the names of the children has already acquired the land and begun the ready for the October InC meetings and cafezinhos. transformation of a wild, untouched mountainside into an eco garden and village. ConWe will also plan another family tree planting struction of some of the main buildings began day in October. in May and several families of the INCRIO along with student volunteers from the British For further information contact: Robyn school, local boy scouts and community Thompson retho55@hotmail.com groups have joined in several tree planting days.

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Charity Focus

The Solidarity Wave is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization with headquarters in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Devon (UK).

It's mission is to "promote social inclusion, generating opportunities in low income communities in Brazil and encourage public awareness and participation of individuals in several parts of the world to build a global society, with more justice and solidarity. " The group in Rio de Janeiro has several key programs involving children from ages 3 to 20 years old in various educational and sporting programs. The project that the International Club of Rio has been closely involved with for the last few years is the Villa Project.

DONATIONS FOR ABRIGO DA GUARATIBA AT THE SEPTEMBER GENERAL MEETING PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE REPEATING THE DONATIONS FOR THE ORPHANAGE IN GUARATIBA THIS YEAR AS THEY ARE FREQUENTLY RUNNING OUT OF MILK FOR THE BABIES AND TODDLERS.

NINHO POWDERED MILK NESTOGENIO POWDERED MILK

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MONDAY: It's so overwhelmingly rich in wildlife here that we feel as if we have been here a week. The Transpantaneira Highway, the one road that traverses the Pantanal, was built in 1979, is 90 miles long, is made of gravel and dirt that was trucked in, and opened up the Pantanal to the world's scientific community (and tourists) which has led to the identification of thousands of species. During the rainy season the water floods much of the land but the road was built to be higher than its surroundings to avoid flooding; still, even when it's not fully swamped, there is water up to the road’s edges. That means we can see life that we wouldn't get to see otherwise. So a typical 360º view, in a one minute time period, can include a bevy of caimans, flocks of Buffnecked, Plumbeous, Green and Bare-faced Ibis; Capped, Cocoi, Rufescent Tiger, Striated and Black-crowned Night Herons; Roseate Spoonbills; Limpkins; Wood, Maguari and Jabiru Storks; Egrets; Whistling Ducks, Brazilian Teals; Blue-fronted and Orange-winged Parrots; Peach-fronted, Blue-crowned, Monk and GoldeChevroned Parakeets; Crakes; Stilts; Wattled Jaçanãs; Choco Chachalacas and Bare-faced Curasows - so unusual and beautiful. Raptors are abundant too. Jabirus are another amazing creature. They are HUGE! Standing next to a Great Egret, the Egret looks like a chick. Jabirus are 4 feet high, with a huge wingspan, a funny looking head and a gullet the size of a chicken!

WEDNESDAY: What a fantastic place we drove to yesterday. On the way we saw the pretty Purple Gallinule, and the gorgeous Scarletheaded Blackbird; a Great Horned Owl flew from a low perch right toward our windshield and then veered off. We arrived at our Pousada, which has many visitors, mostly hard-core fishermen. It's a strange culture to observe in a restaurant whose chef must have trained in Paris or Hyde Park. They are all fat, even the Japanese fisherman, which is a surprise. The food is absolutely excellent: local fish, of course, with veggies from their own greenhouse.

THURSDAY: The Pixaim River: We have arrived at our last Pousada. We birded the Transpantaneira in the morning and after Fab did his Pygmy Owl thing we got to see 25 species on one (1) tree!!!!

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FRIDAY, The Last Day: The Road. The Transpantaneira is a bone-jarring, teethloosening, coccyx-numbing washboard that has 147 wooden bridges in various degrees of repair from recently fixed and solid, even if it does have an outside berm rammed through, to absolutely falling apart with boards missing and gaps between dirt bank and bridge beginning or ending - "em mal estado" is how it’s phrased. They all have 2 or 3 boards of varying widths but adding up to just 2 tracks. We have taken many bridge photos. The driveway here on our Pousada has one bridge that is worse than any of those on the Transpantaneira. I couldn’t look. Then there's a spot about 40 yards long that should have a bridge but doesn't. Only a truck or 4-wheel drive vehicle can make it through—which we did numerous times, slipping, sliding, and slurping (that’s the sound the vehicle makes). It's a lesson in relaxation technique.

This afternoon we took a boat ride on the Rio Pixaim. It was an incredible flotilla of fragrance. About 50% of the bank had flowering vines and flowering shrubs that either cascaded from 10 feet up or sprawled over the water like a carpet. The intoxicating scents came with a fiesta of color, but we kept remarking on the aromas. Many times the boatman turned off the motor and we floated silently. The birds, of course, were not silent. There were several hundreds of all the aquatic species we've been seeing.

SATURDAY: During last night's spotlight car drive we finally saw, under a full moon, the wide-girthed, largest terrestrial mammal in South America, the Tapir!!!! They are so weird looking with their odd snouts. We came upon 2 Great Horned Owls whoooo met for a blind date, first checking each other out by echolocation, sharing a flurry of wing-flapping over coffee, then moving on to their separate trees. We again saw the Great Potoo very close to the road in the open on a post! They are usually very secretive.

C.'s trip list is 453 birds!!!! 167 Lifers!!!!

We are now out of the Pantanal driving to the airport. I think it's safe to say we have emerged unscathed, without Jaguar mauls, agitated Caiman attacks, venomous snake, spider, caterpillar or frog bites, or the vehicle falling into the water with loose bridge boards. We won’t count those 6 day-lasting bites from the swarm of Flying Fire Ants from our last Tower perch at Cristalino…

We hope you can go to the Amazon and Pantanal for the trip of a lifetime!

Marla and Claudius

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Raf Kiss

Brazil’s hidden gems – Vassouras, the city of the Coffee Baron Vassouras was one of the most important cities of Brazil during the Coffee era

Coffee used to be one of the biggest economical drivers of 19th century Brazil, and Vassouras was the financial and commercial heart of the coffee trade during Brazil’s imperial period.

Vassouras didn’t start out that way, however. Its name refers to “vassoura” which is Portuguese for “broom”. Before becoming the most important coffee producing region of Brazil, the hills around Vassouras were covered with a kind of shrub (tupeiçava) that was excellent for producing brooms. Hence the name “Vassouras” Going back to the 18th century, when the gold and diamond mines of Minas Gerais were the colony’s primary source of wealth, Vassouras was merely a place where travellers used to rest on their dangerous quest into the deep interior, in search of fortune.

During the second half of the 18th century, the gold and diamond mines started to run dry, and Brazil needed another export product to finance its own, but also Portugal’s economical expansion and that product became known as the “green gold”: Coffee .

Vassouras was initially what was known as a “sesmaria”, which were Train station in Vassouras – according to some, the most beautiful of the pieces of land that were “given” to people with money and a sense of country. Inaugurated in 1914 and adventure in order for them to develop agricultural activity – mostly closed again in 1970 coffee.

This was one way the Portuguese Crown promoted the expansion of Brazil’s population and economy.

In 1782, the “sesmaria de Vassouras e Rio Bonito” was donated to Fransisco Rodrigues Alves, and thus started the development of not only Vassouras, but also of the coffee era. Many coffee farms (Fazendas) were constructed in the area, and by 1828, coffee production exceeded sugar for the first time.

At one point, the fazendas in the region around Vassouras were responsible for 65% of Brazil’s total coffee export.

The high prices on the world coffee market made the fazendeiros (fazenda owners) extremely wealthy, which enabled them to turn their farms into true rural palaces.

Some of the main tourist attractions in the city of Vassouras are: • Matriz de Nossa Senhora da Conceição – Main church of Vassouras • Praça Barão de Campo Belo – the square in front of the church • Museu da Chácara da Hera – Museum, former residence of one of the most wealthy coffee traders in the region • Antiga Estação Ferroviária – The antique train Station. (see picture) • Biblioteca Maurício de Lacerda – The library • Paço Municipal / Prédio da Prefeitura e Câmara Municipal – City hall and former prison • Chafariz D. Pedro II – fountain in honour of Pedro II, second emperor of Brazil • Colégio Santos Anjos – College.

• Mausoléu da Família do Barão de Itambé – Mausoleum of the family of Baron of Itambe

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Raf Kiss The Coffee Fazendas

As mentioned, the coffee fazendas are the main rea- The back of the main house with son why tourists would want to come and visit this three imperial historically important region.

The casa Grande (the main house) of Fazenda Ponte Alta near Vassouras

There are 33 fazendas that you can visit in a 5000km² area around Vassouras, each with its own specific history and identity. Some of them offer rooms where you can spend a few nights, exploring the region.

One example that I visited myself is Fazenda Ponte Alta, formerly owned by the Baron of Mambucaba and his family. This fazenda is also a pousada, offering rooms which have the original furniture and serving its meals in the original silver plates, just like in the golden days of the coffee barons.

Even an afternoon visit to the fazenda is a very special experience. It is a combination of cultural, ecological and pedagogical tourism, taking place at the exact location where the historical events occurred almost 200 years ago.

Visitors are welcomed by people in 18th century attire, representing historical figures that once lived and worked at the fazenda, like the baron of Mambucaba, a former owner.

palm trees (palmeiras imperial) which were used to show the social status of the owner of the fazenda

One of the actors is Dona Rosa, who is a direct descendant from the slaves who once did hard labour here.

The “senzalas” (slave quarters), the chapel, the “Engenho” (workshop) the water wheels, and the main house (casa grande) are beautifully restored to give the visitor the best impression of how it used to be, almost 200 years ago.

The senzalas hold a museum with original pieces used at the fazenda, like kitchen equipment, small devices used in the coffee production and devices used to torture the slaves. Another part of the museum is dedicated to art of the time, holding reproductions of jean Baptiste Debret, the French painter who made many valuable lithographs, depicting the people of Brazil.

A few times per year, you can also enjoy events like festa Junina, and an imperial gala evening, where all the participants are dressed in 18th century clothes.

The fazenda can also be booked for weddings and birthdays, Conventions, and has yearly Christmas and New Year’s events.

For everyone interested in the history of Brazil, a visit to the Vale do Café and one or more of its fazendas is a not to miss experience.

More on Brazil’s economy during the Imperial period (Wikipedia)

As part of the visit, there is a sort of theatre presentation, during which five actors tell the story of the history of the fazenda and the Vale do Café, also known as the Paraíba valley, after the Paraíba do Sul

By Raf Kiss - www.angloinfo.com River that runs through the valley.

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Our Calendar

        

Kathy Minemier Tiffany Kearney Carolyn Stacy Desiree Neveu Anne Pietrafitta Zeynep Yuzuak Silvia Chvaicer Antonietta Souza Ana Khouri

Sept Sept Sept Sept Sept Sept Sept Sept Sept

3 6 9 11 14 19 24 26 27

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

1

2

3

4 New Members Gathering

5

6

7 Brazilian Independence Day

8

9

10 Cafezinho Zona Sul

11

12 Thursty Thursday

13

14 Gourmet Cooking Class

15

16

17 Cafezinho Barra

1

19 Portuguese Cafezinho

20

21

22 Sunday Sunset Happy Hour

23

24 General Meeting

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26

27

28

29

30

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Those who make it happen E x e c u ti v e B o a r d 2 0 1 3 President Bonnie Kobert Harrison president@incrio.org.br Vice President

Mike Royster

mr.royster@uol.com.br

Treasurer

Tina Wagner

treasurer@incrio.org.br

Secretary

Susan Loveland

Membership Director Charity Director Fundraising Director Communications Director

Communication Team

Events Director

susanloveland54@msn.com

Liliana Perilla Rojas

dentijet@gmail.com

Robyn Thompson

cc@incrio.org.br

Anna Whyte

whyteanna@gmail.com

Jolanda Maltha

webmaster@incrio.org.br

Melissa Mello e Souza

melissamsouza@globo.com

Coordinators Webmaster The Echo InConnection

Jolanda Maltha Brenda Ledesma Denise Luna

communication@incrio.org.br

Facebook page

Victor Harrison

Facebook Group

Naomi Cohen

General Meetings

Jackie Stern

jdb@amcham.com

Hospitality

Jane Wood

janeandleswood@yahoo.com

Tanya Matheus

tanya_matheus@yahoo.co.uk

Welcome Coordinator Cafezinho’s

Jane Wood (Zona Sul) Carolyn Stacey (Barra)

cafezinho@incrio.org.br

Ac t i v i t y C o o r d i n a t o r s Book Club Bridge Concert Information Fun Cooking Club

Robyn Thompson Coca Caputo

retho55@hotmail.com coca.caputo@globo.com

Margarita Mari Lucia Helena Assad

lhassad@uol.com.br

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