May 30th or: the end

Yeah, this was it. The last day of training. It started off with the sun shining right into my face, and I figured it would be a good time to make use of the running shoes I've carried with me all this time. Spoiler: best decision ever. One of the biggest parks in Sao Paulo is 5 minutes away from the place I'm staying at, and it really is great. You could compare it to the "english garden" in Munich, only that there is more to do in this one called "Parque de Ibirapuera". First, I came across a cohort of soldiers/policemen doing their morning workout. It sounded like this: (drill instructor) "Bom día, bom día" .. "BOM DIA BOM DIA". Even better though, I finally discovered what I had been looking for since I've arrived in Brazil -- an outdoor gym! Just some old stuff to do dips, pullups, core exercises and basically everything you need for a true crossfit workout. That felt great. 

futuristic bus stop in Sao Paulo

big city jungle

Delighted by that, I quickly showered and then went straight to the shelter, this time by bus. Arrived to some rice and gnocchi with meat (my first thought: no beans?!?! what happened?), then we taught the trainees the basics of optics. We now have a good group of very well trained trainees, who will hopefully bring lots of glasses to lots of people who need them. You could tell they were really happy to have the job -- after all, they put in three weeks of their time without certainly knowing the outcome. Well, parabéns, vocês sao parte da familia "OneDollarGlasses" agora! I'm very much looking forward to future results. 

not the average lunch (no beans!)

At night, we celebrated together with our trainees at a nearby pizza place with brazilian pizza and some beer. Touching story here: one of our trainees has not gone out a single night since her first son was born. Today, her son is five and she has two other kids. So she hasn't been out for five years! I have never seen anybody so happy with just a couple slices of pizza and beer. These are the small delights that make this work really wonderful. All the problems we have are really just luxury problems. 

Because we were finally done with our work, we wanted to celebrate a little more, so we tried to go to a party. Tickets were ridiculously expensive (R$180 = 90 USD = 60€), so we just stayed in front and talked to lots of people there. I have never done this before, but it was actually really nice. This way, you get in touch with people you probably wouldn't get in touch with if you were at the party. Very interesting. 

Germany is also present on the shelter's wall

And that's it. Now, another weekend in Sao Paulo lies ahead of us. And after that, we will travel to Rio and Iguazu. That will be a great finish for a great time here in Brazil.

May 29th or: the five dollar shake

The daily grind started again. Jakob moved out in the morning, then we went to the shelter to conduct the last day of real training. We taught some more tricks that are nice to know, got our trainees just a little better and well, that's basically it. Lunch was good as usual, rice, beans and "chicken cake". Not sure how to describe that, but it's basically chicken with egg and cream (?) in a dough shell. Comparable to the french "quiche" but not quite the same. It tasted good anyway.

doing some serious training with the "renobabies" and jesus

Speaking of food, that was definitely the highlight of the day. We went to a place called "Kahuna Burger". Does that ring a bell? ... Well, it was a Pulp Fiction themed restaurant, and it was freaking great. The menu went from the "Big Kahuna Burger" and the "Bacon Blast" to the "Bad Motherfucker" and "Ezekiel 25:17". All of these are big burgers, but nothing beats the Ezekiel. 700g of meat, 10 slices of bacon and cheese, along with some sauces and some alibi veggies. Needless to say, I didn't have it because by now I'm fat enough anyways. I went with the Bacon Blast with just 300g of meat and 4 slices of bacon and cheese, sort of a diet version of the Ezekiel. 

absolutely awesome picture of an absolutely awesome place

Along with that, we had the famous Five Dollar Shake. I love american style milkshakes that basically are icecream, but this one took it to a whole another level. White chocolate flavored iceream, cold hot chocolate and ovomaltine crystals (!!!) topped off with whipped cream. For those lost souls among you who have never tried ovomaltine, it's a malt-chocolate thing from Switzerland. And just like Germany, everything from Switzerland is good. 

Did I use the term food coma already? Well, this took it to a whole another level. I was so tired and full I couldn't even sleep. Might have been a good call to not have fries with that ...

May 28th or: do you take credit card?

After a while, everything becomes a routine. That's also the case with the training. By now, everybody knows what to do and just needs the final 10%, which are also the hardest ones to get. We started off producing since we need more good frames to distribute, but that's pretty much about it. The only distraction brought in are the kids of one of our trainees, which are cute and obnoxious at the same time.

Here's some more stuff I observed today:

1) You can pay by credit card literally anywhere. Any restaurant or store, sure. The newspaper shack on the street, rather surprising. But once I realized that you can pay in the favela with credit card, even though these guys don't have running water or actual houses, I was quite shocked. Today, I realized you can even pay the guy who sells roses at traffic lights with credit card .. how weird is that? That's also the reason why once you pay with cash, you're automatically a foreigner. Brazilians just don't do that.

2) "Brazil is so dangerous .." I haven't really realized that, even though we spend lots of time on the street and in parts of the city that are considered dangerous. But we're still just fine. I don't mean to force it, but propaganda is always worse than the reality. After all, no newspaper would ever publish that nobody got robbed today. 

3) I keep learning about protests in Sao Paulo that are all over the city in the German news (http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/fussball-wm-in-brasilien-proteste-in-sao-paulo-gegen-hohe-kosten-a-971227.html). In reality, I would like to see one, but I just can't find them. So if anybody was concerned about my well-being, it's all good. No worries!

Goodnight!

May 27th or: it's all about money

So yeah, I would like to tell you about interesting stuff that happened today. But really, there's not much to tell. Shot wrapup: we started off the day at our local market with some freshly deep-fried pasteís, then hit the shelter for the training, then went to Sylvia's for some great dinner accompanied by caipirinhas. And that's it.

great pasteís here .. even the locals think so

However, I want to share my impressions of Brazil with you. Like everywhere, not everything is gold. 

1) I may have mentioned this before, but I more and more get the feeling that everything here is about money and working towards your own good. If you don't pay attention, you get ripped off anywhere. Status symbols and money are everything. I have no actual examples, but that's the feeling I get, it is way worse than in Munich (!). 

2) Healthy eating isn't something people in Brazil are good at. Everything contains meat and cheese and is usually accompanied with rice. Salad? Fuck salads. Vegetables? Meh, only if there's lots of meat, cheese, rice and sand. But then again, you can see it. Like in the United States, lots of people are on the verge of being obese. I suppose this is a Sao Paulo phenomenon, because I was told in Rio everybody looks good. I'll see about that in a couple of days. 

3) When we went to Insper, I was baffled. This isn't a university, but an enterprise. Everything looks totally neat, there is an own concert room, the restaurant has prizes that no normal student could ever afford to pay on a daily basis, and the 3-story parking garage filled with Audis and BMWs speaks for itself (this becomes even more impressive after reading 4)). Some research quickly revealed that it is the second most expensive university in Brazil. This explains a lot. Very interesting to work closely together with both the upper and the lower part of society at the same time! 

4) There is a tax for everything. 100% on imported goods, 70% on cars in general (Audi/BMW = imported cars, you do the math), 50% on basically everything else that isn't sold on the black market. No doubt everything here is expensive, except Cachaca, which just costs R$4 per bottle (= 2USD = 1.3€). 

That's it for today. Cheers!

May 26th or: the first step to fame

Today was the day TV Globo was supposed to come. TV Globo is the biggest TV channel in Brazil, and they were going to make a short documentary about us to broadcast in the primetime news. Primetime! 40 MILLION PEOPLE watching. That's like half of Germany's population or 27% of the people in the world who need glasses but cannot afford them. That's huge! 

on the verge of being famous

Only problem was: we looked like shit. Barely sleeping for three days was definitely visible, and especially hard to shrug off for our "old" guys. The reporter, who seemed very professional and nothing like the average media guy we had to deal in the past with, got there and right away started asking questions. It was a very interesting and exciting time for us and especially our trainees. One of them has been looking for his brother and his sister for over twenty years, and now tha 20% of Brazilians are watching, the chances of finding them have never been higher. It gives people who are ignored, frowned upon and basically outcasts of society the opportunity to share their stories and struggles. Here, it is not just about our project anymore, but about individual persons, and it is delighting to help them in any way possible. 

Alex telling his story

Of course, this won't hurt the project either. Our brazilian partners are hoping to raise more money through their crowdfunding campaign (http://www.kickante.com.br/campanhas/renovatio-oculos-para-quem-nao-pode-pagar), and for us it is great to raise the awareness of the project. It might help us in the future aswell.

Needless to say, training didn't really take place today. After all, it took quite a while and everybody was rather exhausted. So we spent the evening at Insper University, listening to a classical concert played by kids aged 8-18. It's another project of Enactus Insper, where music is used to give poor children a new perspective in life. Totally exceeded my expectations, their performance was great. It was especially cool to see an 8-year-old kid man up and play a solo in front of 60 people, very impressive.

great Enactus commercial in the men's bathroom of Insper

Afterwards, Jakob and I had a good talk about how basically everything doesn't matter and why Matrix is the best movie ever. Cheers. 

May 25th or: welcome to the jungle

5am in the morning. It's been a while since I've been up this early. Even near the equator it was still dark night. We wanted to get a lot done today, so we set out early to catch a boat to some communities living near Río Guamá. The sun was blasting, sunscreen and nobite-mosquito-lotion on, glasses we prepared the day before in the bag and we were ready to go. 

The way there was quite long. I thought we'd only have to cross the river, but apparently this wasn't the case, but much rather a 90 minute boat ride. It was a great opportunity to get to know the people from Enactus better, spend time in the sun and most of all to enjoy breathtaking views. Some things you can't describe (quoting the president of Enactus Brazil, with whom I had a nice talk aswell: "Describe the difference between sweet and salty .. right, it's not possible, you have to experience it). So have a look: 

yes, this is actually a river

breathtaking views

the community inside ...

.. and outside

Once we got there, everybody was already waiting for us. We set everything up, especially Daniel had lots to do for the filming of the whole procedure. Once everything got going, we served the purpose of this whole trip -- empowering people to see properly again! We distributed glasses to around 40 people, giving 40 individuals the ability to see, learn and work again. Some were delighted by the new perspectives, others were rather confused, which is totally understandable: after all, if you've never had glasses in your life before, everything looks really weird. We had some rice, graviola-cupuacu juice and acai for lunch, which was pretty good. Then we took the boat back to Belém, just in time before another apocalyptical rainstorm. 

Belém under clouds

When the other boat eventually got there, we headed back to pack our stuff, get a quick powernap and shower. We met up with some of the enactees in a bar one more time, had a couple Chopp and some food before heading to the airport. On our way there, we had an absolutely insane cab driver: he shifted gears more than I do with a gear-operated car; only thing was: it was automatic. While going 130km/h isn't much for a german, it appears a lot more when everybody else is just going 60. We even passed by a police car, who just didn't give a damn. Needless to say, we got there in time for our flight, said goodbye to everybody and took a couple more selfies. On a side note, selfies and generally pictures are something very common to brazilians. Everything that goes down deserves a picture, and even if nothing happens, it's good to take one. 

.. and that's how it is done

The rest of the journey wasn't really too exciting. Sleeping on the plane is always a challenge, even when you're exhausted, but it was okay. Then we took the cab from the airport, arrived at our place, and it was locked. We figured we didn't want to wake our host up, so we just texted her and slept in the lobby for a while. Afterwards, we went to bed. I don't think I've ever slept in four different places within one night. 

#planeselfie

May 24th or: the worst place to watch a champions league final

Today wasn't as exciting. A couple of guys including me were really pumped about the Champions League final, but first of all we had to go to the local university in order to observe the measuring process for the glasses. One hour or two would have been sufficient, yet we spent the whole day there not doing much. Sure, it was good to see the measuring process and even more important to talk to the doctor in order to change the prescriptions so they are suitable for our glasses. But all in all, we didn't have too many tasks.

Try watching a champions league final in a waiting room. It's not very exciting. Worst thing was that the university had to be closed down at six, so we missed most of the overtime. Luckily we only missed the completely undeserved victory of one of the most unsympathetic teams in the world (only Chelsea is worse, I'd say), so not much. 

sadly, we didn't bring our typical german hawaii shirts

At night, we went to the "noite havaiana", a fundraiser organized by the Enactus CESUPA team. It was a rather nice atmosphere, especially because most of the team was there. Also, they had some really intriguing musicians there, brazilians know how to make music! 

Tomorrow alarm is on 5am sharp. G'night. 

May 23rd or: the sertanejo

So we were in Belém, which was supposed to be the "hottest city on earth" (courtesy to some dude in Sao Paulo). We woke up freezing. Like in the United States, AC is a given in most houses and usually turned on ridiculously low, basically ensuring you catch a cold sooner or later. Once we left the room, a heat shock was imminent. Humidity of approximately 78919074770%, around 30°C (or 92°F for people with weird measures) led to a sticky, sweaty air that we would learn to enjoy throughout the next days. 

We had an elaborate feast as breakfast. Our host Luana and her family overwhelmed us with a level of hospitality that exceeded anything we had seen before. Very interesting by the way, students in Brazil usually live with their parents .. and their grandparents .. and their aunts .. so basically with their whole family, which rather surprised me. I'm rather used to hygienically questionable student flats whose fridges basically contain beer and maybe some food. I didn't expect a proper home with a fridge filled to the max. 

After having breakfast, we set off to having lunch. In case anybody is wondering -- yes, we're getting fat here. Not doing almost any sports but eating meat and carbs for every meal does have its effect. Hell, I'd kill for a salad by now. Lunch was meat and seafood accompanied with something called "Açaí", which is a thick juice made of the Açaí-Berry. Its taste is rather difficult to describe, but for some reason the taste as well as the consistency were similar to olive oil, only different. To put it with Caio's words: "It's like icecream except it's not icecream". Also very intense purple color. Tasted very healthy, and makes you really tired for some reason. It's noticable that I've been in Brazil for a while now, because one of the Brazilian's favorite topics is food -- something I talk about a lot aswell now.

magnificient cathedral in the middle of the city .. very european

Then we took a tour of Belém. It is so much different than Sao Paulo: the buildings are not as high, most buildings are a little older and a bit dirty, but that makes it even more beautiful. Fitted my imagination of Brazil much more. Being really close to the Equator, the rain was imminent --every day at 3pm, apocalyptical rain starts and drenches the whole area. After an hour, the sun is shining again. 

apocalyptical weather

So far, so good. Afterwards, we got a powernap in before we set out to have dinner and some "Chopp" (= draft beer) from a local brewery. Especially interesting was the Açaí-Stout, which tasted like a combination of Açaí and Guiness. I liked it. After discussing for approximately 9932 decades what we should do next, we decided on a "Sertanejo"-Bar. Sertanejo is basically brazilian country music, although much more enjoyable. We saw a live band in a bar accompanied with a couple Caipirinhas and I have to say, I have no regrets. That was actually really cool. 

something you wouldn't find in Sao Paulo

Considering we had to get up the next morning around 8, we figured we should probably get another 3 hours of sleep, which we would need. 

May 22nd or: why it's better to take the bus

Today was gonna be a long day. Getting up at 7.30am sharp (NOT brazilian time) -- by the way, did I tell you about brazilian time? It works like this: you set a time for whatever (an event starting, meeting up with somebody, waking up, ...), and then you come between 30 minutes and 2 hours late. That can be very exhausting, but we somewhat got used to it.

At the shelter, we received Abioptica once again to show them our production process. Following this was an absolute chaotic discussion the brazilian way: everybody speaking with everybody in high volume and really fast while not really considering that this probably doesn't lead to anything productive. Aside of that, our portuguese wasn't quite sufficient. We managed to get some good talks in eventually though.

Afterwards, we caught up on the feijoada we missed out upon yesterday and waited for TV Globo, the biggest brazilian TV channel. Turns out they didn't show up and rescheduled us to Monday because of the protests going on in Sao Paulo (which I haven't noticed yet, I learned this in the German news). Well, we can live with that. Gave us more time for training, which is good as well. 

We packed up all the material for Belem and had a good talk between us four german trainers, because Deniz left on Sunday. It took of course longer than expected, but we figured we would still be fine. We called a cab to pick up our stuff, and then we encountered real Sao Paulo traffic. Nothing worked, everybody was basically stuck and we probably would have been better off walking. The only thing that slightly works are the buses, because they have separate lanes. So we got out at a bus stop and took the bus. Taking the bus here is gambling, because you cannot figure out where exactly they are going, it's just not possible. But we know two bus stops close to our place, so we figured we might as well give it a shot. It worked, and we got there after one hour (usually, this takes 15mins max by cab). We left the house 2.5h before our flight left. Plenty of time for a domestic flight, right? That's what we thought, too. Turns out we should take more than 1.5h to get to the airport, again because of traffic. Getting through Sao Paulo at rush hour isn't really possible. This city needs a real metro, wayyyyy more than is existing right now. 

We got our flight, ate some papaya we brought with us for dinner in the airport (nasty!) and flew to Belém. 3.5h in the plane, 3000km and still in the same country? On paper, yes. In reality, Belém and Sao Paulo don't have that much in common aside of the country and the language. At the airport, we were welcomed by 8 Enactees from the Enactus CESUPA team in the middle of the night. They even made T-Shirts for the OneDollarGlasses project! You could tell they were really excited to have us here, and that felt absolutely great. We were quite overwhelmed, and that was just the beginning. First of all, we were mostly fine with some water and a bed. 

May 21st or: what happened here?

To be honest, it's been a while. I didn't have the opportunity to write any more posts because there was just so much to do. You'll find out. That's also why I don't really remember much what happened on this day, it was pretty ordinary. The only really striking thing that I noticed was some sort of a "meat hangover" -- I just didn't feel like having meat at all.

Started off with some crossfit and Software Engineering, then went to the shelter. We were surprised that although it was wednesday, there wasn't any feijoada. Weird. Then we proceeded to train our trainees, who have been making good progress. But all in all we were mostly preparing for upcoming stuff: the TV team who was supposed to come on thursday, and the upcoming trip to Belém. I spent most of the time correcting frames from Burkina Faso while helping the trainees.

One of our trainees, Alex, fixing his sunglasses with OneDollarGlasses springsteel wire. Really made me proud.

At night, we had some good dinner at Sylvia's Restaurant (also known as Ralf's house) and then went home quickly for packing and sleeping -- something we shouldn't get a lot of in the near future. 

May 20th or: the rodízio, part 2

Having a morning off felt really good. It gave me time for some crossfit, some studying and going to the market. On the one hand, markets are really cool and it's easy to get some good fruits there. On the other hand, I feel like everytime you're ripped off once the dealers realize you're not from around here. We got some decent priced fruit though: papaya and some bananas, that both tasted great. 

Market in Itaim

Then we proceeded normally with the training. Lots of intense one-on-one coaching pretty much filled up the day and time flew by. 

I had waited all day for the moment that finally began on 9:30pm: another round of rodizío. Almost starving because we hadn't eaten much all day, we indulged ourselves in insane amounts of meat. It's just impossible to resist. I wonder why Deniz, our vegetarian, didn't come with us. Anyway, we basically just ate finest beef and lamb until we were full. Which took quite a while. However, as I am typing this, I can hardly move. Maybe it was a little too much. 

Because of that, I feel the ultimate food coma kicking in. I would really like to tell you some more but I .... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

May 19th or: the first caipirinha

We set off to start a new week of training. First thing, we gathered some more trainees from other shelters in order to scout for new talent. It worked out really well, and now we have enough trainees, some of which are really doing well. Also, a couple kids belong to our group now!

new learners .. instead of bending glasses, I taught them to fold boats

Training didn't really contain anything special, just the usual stuff. Progress of some of the trainees is great, others not so much. That's normal though. 

At night, we went to dinner with our host Michelle. She's a very nice lady who basically sacrificed her whole apartment for us -- she comes home, there's Germans there. She leaves, the Germans are there. Not that we spend much time here, but apparently more than she does. Anyway, we figured we should invite her to dinner. So we went to a brazilian bar around the corner, had some "pasteis" (deep-fried pockets of dough filled with ground meat or cheese) and "carne seca" (dried meat with onions) with fried "mandioca". Great meal, two servings were totally sufficient for the three of us. 

And after 10 days here, I finally had my first original brazilian Caipirinha. Very tasty, also very strong. More importantly, the don't use brown sugar for it, which makes it look less "dirty". Probably one of the biggest myths in cocktail culture. 

May 18th or: the favela

As I mentioned earlier, we had to get up at 9 in order to see some stuff. More accurately, we were going to a "community" that turned out to be a favela. Ralf, our host, was helping the community in a discussion with a not-so-influential politician. Good that he was there though. 

Roads aren't that great here

For us it was great as well: we experienced a legitimate brazilian favela without too much risk. Before we got to the community, we were told to not speak German or actually speak at all, but once we got there, it felt pretty safe. On the one hand, the houses were built from everything but usual building material, it smelled bad and the amount of trash was ridiculous. On the other hand, most of the huts had satellite access and water tanks, so I wasn't really sure what to think of it. Pretty terrible standard of living, but still way better than in Africa. Take a look yourself:

#pigselfie

Trashographer

"road of peace"

View all over the favela

The people were really nice, although I couldn't accept the water they offered me -- sure, it's a nice gesture, but the hygienical standards and the water quality were questionable at most. I probably would have spent the night in the bathroom in the best case scenario. 

We feasted once again at Ralf's (next level meatloaf with cheese + the usual: rice, beans, salad, sand + delicious dessert of which I don't know the name), then were about to head home. Just before we wanted to leave, one of the most massive thunderstorms I've seen in my life broke loose. Ridiculous amounts of water came down, accompanied by enough hail to provide all of Brazil with ice for Caipirinhas. Most people (mostly the ones who were inside)  were happy about it because it had not rained here for a month or so. 

Perfect size for icecubes

The thunderstorm was so bad that when we got home, the power in the whole block was out for two hours. Quite astonishing how much we depend on electricity by now -- no WiFi, cell phone battery was almost empty, laptop was empty, no light, and the worst: no elevator. We then proceeded to do our workout for the day: going up the stairs to the 13th floor. Also, reading scientific papers at candlelight was something completely new to me. 

Eventually power came back, and about two hours afterwards the internet worked again. Too bad we were already sleeping by then. 

May 17th or: the festival

Lots of quality meat .. our vegetarians weren't convinced

Finally weekend. Finally some time to relax. That's what we thought at least. After not making it to the cultural program because we overslept, we set off later on yet another bus ride into nowhere. Bus rides here are rather difficult because you just can't tell what the next stop is. Neither is it called anywhere in the bus, nor do the stations have names. Thank God for GPS.

Our destination was the „mercado municipal“. This time, unlike last Sunday, it was open, and I'm pretty positive that if it exists, you can probably get it in there. Lots and lots of meat, cheese, delicacies, fruits and lunch. Which we got in form of Mortadella Sandwiches, which were basically meat and cheese with a tiny bit of bread. Along with that we had „pasteis“, which are deep fried pieces of dough filled with something like cheese, fish, shrimp or meat. Needless to say, a very satisfying and unhealthy meal.

The healthy stuff was to follow. The people at the fruit stand generously let us try lots of their fruits, which were really exotic – I had at least 4 sorts of fruit that I've never had before. We wanted to buy some as well, of course. So we went in the back of the shack, where we were told that the price for all of that is just R$ 250. No thanks dude, not for lke 300g of fruit.

Falling into a food coma once again, we went back to the place some of us are staying in order to watch the glorious victory of Bayern against Dortmund. Yes, the ball was in the goal, but impossible to see for the naked eye – thank God and Brazil for Dante (not Aligheri, but Bonfirm da Costa).

Enjoying the final and the sunshine

It had been a good day so far. But it got even better. In Sao Paulo, there is an open air festival all across the city every year, which just happened to be this weekend. We went to the Republica square to listen to some Jazz, Brass and Reggae. Very interesting experience for a few reasons:

1. I was afraid beer would be expensive. It wasn't, because there are lots of black market sellers with whom you can easily negotiate with.
2. These guys are also really good at running when the police shows up. Feels like children playing catch, except for the fact that the people who get caught got beaten up brutally. Tough punishment for selling a couple beers in my opinion.
3. A brass band randomly started playing in the park next to the square, and it was probably the best impromptu show I've ever seen. Great show, great guys, great vibes. Check them out, their name is Bagunco.
4. We went there by using the metro. I was rather surprised, the system is definitely comparable to Paris aside from the fact that it doesn't nearly cover the whole city.

Instant brass band

We called it a night. Lots of good stuff happened, and we were keen to get some sleep. Especially since the next day, we would have to get up at 8 again. On a Sunday.

May 16th or: oh god why, part 2

next level excitement

During the morning, we always have some free time. You can use it like Daniel above, or you can use it wisely. After getting up, I watched the excellent performance of our Enactus team at the regional competition. Then I hit the supermarket. Fruits of any sort, limes for 70ct the kilo and personnel for every job possibly existing. Someone who weighs fruit for you, two guys who put your stuff in bags (even the single bottle of water), one who pushes the cart to your car at each register. I wonder how there are still people who have no job. 

Apparently, 11am wasn't the best time to do shopping. Anywhere you went, you saw carts loaded up to the max -- probably housemaids doing the everyday shopping for their families. Also, these people were insanely slow putting their stuff out of the cart; it looked like this: one carton of milk, a kilo of meat .. hey, a WhatsApp message .. the cashier is waiting .. ok, here's a couple bananas .. wait, somebody is calling me, better answer that .. . You get the idea. As a german who's always in a hurry, it drove me crazy. Absolutely inefficient. 

Then, training started. The heat was blasting (it was, according to our brazilian friends, "cold" = 28°C and sunshine). We got some decent improvement with the trainees and even acquired new ones!

brazilian supermarket

At night, I did something for the first time in my life. I have seen many things, experienced good and bad stuff, but never this: a vegetarian restaurant. Some of us felt like they had had too much meat (didn't know that's possible) and our vegetarian Deniz wanted to eat "more than just side dishes". I do understand that, life as a vegetarian is really tough in Brazil since you're mostly stuck with rice and beans. Well, after a legitimate 2 hours of waiting and starving, we finally got our food -- I had red risotto with shitake, gorgonzola, pears and walnuts. While the food was delicious aside from its lack of meat, it was by no means enough for anybody. So we basically paid a ridiculous amount of money for basically nothing; however, it was an absolutely enjoyable dinner. 

Day over? No. Complaining isn't gonna get you anywhere. We headed out to a real brazilian bar, and this is how it works: you get your beer and you're free to take it outside, stay inside, whatever you want. Everything is really relaxed. That was great, I could do that again any day. Something I noticed: the beer in Brazil is so cold it's actually freezing. Now I understand why people think we drink "warm" beer in Europe -- because 6-8°C is different from -4°C. Brazilian beer wouldn't taste good at that temperature. Along with beer, a midnight snack seemed appealing. Hot Dog with mashed potatoes, pickles, cheese and some more stuff I can't really tell? I'm in. And it was great. 

May 15th or: oh god why, part 1

Training on thursday took place as usual. The discrepancies between trainees become more striking the more time passes -- one are bending whole glasses on their own after two days, others still need guidance for every single step. Also, it is noticable that Brazil is not Africa, for several reasons:

1) we're having issues with our trainees. I don't want to go into detail too much, but we're facing problems we haven't faced before .. but I'm also confident that we will find a solution! 

shelter at night

2) the price level is about the same as in Germany, with some stuff being even more expensive (Big Mac Index: 13 R$ = 4,3€). Meat and liquor are rather cheap (what else do you need?), but stuff like bread and dairy products are wayyyyy more expensive  (500g cheese = 6€, one loaf of toast 2€). Also, nightclubs and bars take pricing to a whole another level, but more on that later. 

3) the infrastructure is decent. Taking the bus is definitely an option, toilets and bathrooms have european standards everywhere and the power never goes out. That does feel good.

Aside of that, I'm still alive, didn't get robbed, mugged or stabbed. I feel like it's not that dangerous here, especially when you move around with people from Sao Paulo. The risk of that happening may be higher, but I feel pretty safe here.

an elaborate feast

So yeah, "oh god why"? Well, we were keen on experiencing the brazilian nightlife. After an excessive dinner, we really wanted to head out for maybe one beer or two. To me, brazilian nightlife would mean a classic brazilian bar, and when one of the guys was like "yeah, we're going to the Irish Pub", I thought it was a joke. Long story short, it wasn't. 100% the same as in Germany or anywhere else, completely overpriced with loud music that made it impossible to have a decent conversation -- hell, they even charged entry fees. Might be a good place to go if you're looking to spend the whole night there, but for just a beer it's not worth it. 

Nonetheless, I absolutely enjoy Brazil!

May 14th or: the feijoada

One of the many reasons why I despise Apple products is their fragility. Today, we had to deal with exactly that. Jakob's iPhone dropped and had some trouble, so we went to the Apple store which wasn't an apple store. Another hour wasted in the mall, gotta get used to that apparently. In the morning I even got some studying in, which is quite impressive. Considering that hardly ever happens in Germany unless I really have to, it's an achievement. 

We got to the shelter just in time for Feijoada. Wednesday is Feijoada day in Brazil. What is it, you ask? I can only guess. It's a stew made of beans, some form of meat (in this case sausage) and some other stuff which I cannot tell. Very nutrititous and delicious! 

Aaaaand then the usual stuff began. Measuring trainees who aren't able to see properly, correcting frames, teaching others -- you know how it is. Three trainees now can actually read, which they couldn't before. Great feeling. Also got to know more Enactus Insper students, which I highly liked. Seems to be a really motivated team just like ours. 

At night, we feasted. That's right, a FEAST. The housemaid of one of our hosts cooked a brazilian dinner consisting of Schweinsbraten, Feijao (beans), rice, salad, egg salad and farofa (sand .. no, really, it looks like sand. It's actually fried flour though). Absolutely delicious. Gotta love brazilian food. 

Now I'm laying in bed writing this. Since I'm already here, I might as well go to sleep. Boa noite!

May 13th or: time to throw up

The title partially refers to the Brazilian laws about glasses. You'll learn about the other part at the end of this entry. 

Starting off the day, we visited "Abioptica", the association of Brazilian opticians. They asked (from what I understood, I'm still not fluent) lots of critical questions, that we only were partially able to answer. All in all it seems that we won a possibly strong partner there. 

Training outside ...

Afterwards, we had lunch with our trainees (surprise meal: salad, rice, beans, meat). An hour later, training was scheduled to begin. The difference in skills of the trainees is striking -- some basically learn by themselves, you just have to show them once, whereas others don't get anything after explaining it approximately 8123291 times. Though the language barrier is a factor, it certainly isn't the only reason. However, this is the usual process of a training and imposes a quite interesting challenge.The weather was great though, so we spent lots of time outside teaching our fellow Enactees our craft. 

... and inside.

At night, we went to the mall (really? yeah, no joke) to eat. The only positive thing about this is that you have lots of different foods to choose from. I had classic Brazilian food: Yaki Soba (japanese brazilian food, ya know). 

By the way, did I tell you about the traffic? There are lots of weird rules about it: 
1) There are Omnibus only lanes. Really handy because otherwise, buses would just take forever to get somewhere.
2) It takes forever to get somewhere, I've rarely spent that much time in a car. Good thing gas is cheap. 
3) On one day of the week, you're not allowed to use your car during rush hour, depending on the last letter of your license plate (it's called rodízio, just like the dinner type).
4) On sundays between 7am and 16pm, some lanes are blocked for bicycles only. 
5) Traffic during rush hour is terrible, duh. 

Also, costs for personal seem to be incredibly low. A couple examples:
1) A lady in the elevator who presses the buttons for you.
2) Two guys with flags who stop cars when a pedestrian is crossing the street ... on a parking lot.
3) Everywhere you go, there's at least 3 guards (there might be another reason for that)
4) Stores and restaurants usually have more staff than customers. 

So yeah, what about throwing up? Check out this picture (Germans only): 

Zeit zum Ko(t)zen (= time to throw up)

Goodnight!

May 12th or: the beginning

Today was the day it all began. ...

What? The world cup? The apocalypse? No, of course not. Just our OneDollarGlasses training in Brazil. Basically, we arrived at the homeless shelter, only to find 1 (in words: ONE) trainee there. We were quite astonished, since we had already done exercises with 8 trainees beforehand and expected them to be there aswell. So we just recruited more, eventually ending up with 12 trainees. Before that, we had lunch. Where? What? C'mon, you can guess it: at the mall. Beef with rice. And fries, not beans.  While we were there, we also wanted to get brazilian SIM cards. I always thought this was a quick-and-easy process. Well, it's not. It took us more than 2 hours to get them for everybody. Impressive.

Anyway, we started teaching them the art of making glasses. Language barriers are tough, but my portuguese keeps getting better. Especially helpful was the empirical market research Felipe and I conducted in the streets in order to find a meaningful name for our project in Brazil. Turns out we still have no idea what to call it, but the name doesn't really matter to most of the people either. 

We finished the day with a nice dinner. Beautifully grilled steak along with "Chopp", which is draft beer, ensured our satisfaction. We're getting along great with our fellow Enactees from Insper University and up to now, it has been a pleasure. 

Bonus question: what would you put in an urinal to make it smell better? Chemical stuff? "Urinal cake"? Not in Brazil. Take a look: 

Limes are useful!

May 11th or: mother's day

"Waking up in the morning, feeling like P-Diddy, grab up my glasses, I'm out the door, I'm gonna hit the city .. " pretty much sums up the start of our day. (if this sounds familiar: Ke$ha -- Tik Tok). We wanted to have breakfast. On a normal sunday this would be an average challenge. Good thing there is the "mercado municipal", it's always open on sunday. Unless it's mother's day, which is basically a combination of christmas day, easter and new year's eve -- everything is closed. Except for the mall. So we went once again to get food there: rice, beans, meat, you know how it is. Love it though. 

The nicer part of Sao Paulo: Jardims Paulistas

Afterwards, we went to see the Central Park of Sao Paulo. Frankly, I don't recall the name, but it certainly reminded me of NYC. Huge park with lots of bicyclists, coconut water shacks (doesn't quite taste like coconut, but it is pretty refreshing) and of course trees. Basically, it's the lung of the city, providing a tremendously big green area near the center. Interesting fact: the owner of the businesses that rent bikes around the park makes 2 million R$ per month (around 1 million USD). That's even more than Jordan Belfort in "The Wolf of Wall Street" makes. 

Palm trees in Winter? Not bad

Feeling relaxed, it was time to get down to business. We still hadn't come forward with the selection process of the trainees that much, so we went to a church where refugees are supposed to live. We didn't encounter any, but only the priest, who gave us an appointment with them the morning after. The area around the church was rather interesting though: lots of buildings that certainly wouldn't be around in Germany anymore because they look so badly. Seemed like a rather poor neighborhood, yet we made it out alive. Sao Paulo isn't as dangerous as everybody thinks. 

At night, the rest of the team arrived, except for Deniz. We moved quarters and now Jakob and I are staying in a small apartment with a genuinely nice girl who even speaks german. Feels good.