DUM Dum dum (menacingly...)

The end approaches.

The last three weeks of my life have been a blur of boredom, ISP, anxiety, excitement, saudade and fruit. Saudade, for those who do not speak Portuguese, is a term for homesickness. Recently I have been having (because you have saudade, you don’t feel it) quite a bit of it. There are myriad things here in the southern hemisphere that I do enjoy, mangoes, for one, but all things considered I prefer the friends, family, weather, food, and hominess of home.
The ISP. Despite ample frustration and stress, my ISP is happening. It was touch and go for a bit at the beginning. As I may or may not have expressed in a previous entry, my initial thoughts/desires about the project were to work with the cattle/meat industry in the state of Par·. I figured that this would tie in nicely with my interest in the atrocity of the American food industry. After talking with many researchers around town, (which, by the way, is not fun nor generally a good experience. Imagine: you are a student studying in a foreign country, don’t speak the language well, study with an organization that no one knows about, and approach distinguished researchers on the premise that you have one month to conduct a research project of which you have little idea of what you want to do) and being shrugged off by many researchers in town, I spoke with Osvaldo Kato, a senior researcher at EMBRAPA, who is familiar with the SIT program and the nature of the ISP. Basically, he introduced me to Dr. Stefan Hohnwald (German researcher who speaks English and Portuguese) and said: “look, this kid has a month to do a research project, find something for him.” More like, “make something up” for him. So my project was born.
Stefan’s project is quite interesting. However, at the start of my project, there was more or less nothing to be done for the larger project. So my project was fabricated. The said “interesting project’ is working with the integration of a phase of pastureland into the traditional cycle of slash and burn agriculture. Slash and burn is a very common practice among small-scale farmers in tropical environments. Traditionally, this process involves four phases: cutting down forest, burning the biomass to both clear the land and fertilize the soil, planting crops, leaving the cleared land fallow for a number of years for secondary growth to accumulate. However, due to many factors, this style of agriculture has become highly unsustainable, quickly degrading cropland, and forcing farmers to move to new land, deforest new tracts, etc… Thus, much of the world thinks it is these farmers driving deforestation. Anyhow, Stefan’s project is examining the potential of inserting a phase of livestock pasture after the cropping phase and before/during the fallow period. He has planted legumes among the native secondary growth, because legumes, generally speaking, are versatile plants and are efficient at fixing nutrients in the soil. The legumes are thought to serve a dual purpose: fix nitrogen in the soil to increase soil fertility for future cropping phases, and accumulate nitrogen (i.e. protein) in the above ground biomass, and therefore provide a nutritious food source for the grazing livestock.
My project is a comparison of the two leguminous bush species planted in terms of biomass and nutrient composition. For those of you who exceeded the level of “gumshoe” in Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, you probably figured that looking at bushes not only has nothing to do with food industries, but it is boring. But there is a tradeoff: the project is not in a field that is interesting to me, but I was basically handed a project that is feasible and fairly straightforward. The pros and cons are raucously battling for control of my perception of the project. I go through extreme phases of feeling that the project is quite simple and I am lucky for that, only to be faced with feelings of extreme lethargy and indifference to it because I just don’t care about the topic. Ob-la-di.
In similar news, Thanksgiving brought about some serious saudade, and in the wake of the day and the feelings, Meg, Emily and I crafted a spectacle of Thanksgiving dinner last night. A whole day of cooking produced: green beans, mashed potatoes, one loaf of sundried tomato and one loaf of garlic and rosemary bread, both from scratch, stuffing, turkey, apple pie and pumpkin pie. Oh, friends, it was glorious. The joy brought about by the food and the company and they wine, in addition to sharing our festivities with Brasilians was magnificent. A wonderful homage to an American holiday, while embracing the fact that we are in Brasil. In fact, at the time of this writing, nearly lunchtime the morning after, I have yet to hear the call of the hunger fairy.
On the topic of the joy of cooking, I AM GOING TO HAVE A TELEVISION SHOW WHEN I RETURN TO SKIDMORE. Yes, you read correctly, I will be hosting/creating a vegetarian cooking, responsible eating awareness show on Skidmore’s own SkidTV this coming spring semester. Hoorah. It is nearly impossible to convey the excitement I feel for this show in words…so LFBBSAJH#!!!$@!@#$HSKLJ should suffice for the time being. The planning and thinking about the show has occupied my mind for many hours of many days, and is certainly contributing to my desire to return. Anyhow, before I lose the audience that tunes in for my posts, I will certainly be putting up more info about the show: description, website, and where you can watch it once it comes out. So be alert! Check back frequently! And let me know if you have an uncle in the TV business!

Don’t forget to wash behind your ears,
Andrew