So we arrived back to a warm welcome at the ecology department, where we started to unload the mountains of equipment, plants and soil we’d brought with us (and a parasol it turns out we’d accidentally stolen from the place where we were staying! Well, might come in handy for the next project…) and practically filled the lab with stuff.
(Back at the ecology building on top of the hill)
It was good to be back in Lavras and to see some familiar faces (and some new ones too), and to finally crash at home with an evening of catching up and reflecting on the last three weeks – followed by a day of reorganisation in the labs, the beginning of the analysis, and rediscovery of some of the secret spots around the university…
The first weekend back was an eventful one, (as every weekend seems to be here…) hitting off on Friday evening with the Brazil game, which we caught outside of the student halls on campus. Plenty of flag-waving, some rather uncomfortably close explosions, and lots of shouting and excitement as usual (well, it was good while it lasted…). After grabbing a bite at the local mall we went to celebrate our victory by joining the masses out on the main street, which was crammed with people merrymaking and basking in the glory of the day’s result. It was nice to have the opportunity to enjoy such an atmosphere, one I had to explain to my friends that we didn’t necessarily experience so often back home…
Saturday brought another evening of very Brazilian festivities. Although it was technically already July, we hadn’t missed all of the aforementioned Festa Juninas here in Lavras, and there was still the ecology department’s own fest held at the house of a friend. It was slightly different from the one we’d visited in Penedo – this time odd traditional side definitely came out a bit stronger.
Everyone was dressed in famer’s attire, donning straw hats and checked shirts, and sharing huge pans of delicious home-made chilli stews and punch. Here I even met some friendly characters that I’d already met in Lancaster, as well as some new ones that would quickly become very good friends. It really doesn’t seem to take very long to get to know someone here in Brazil.
A little while into the festivities, the lively Brazilian country music was interrupted by an announcement that a marriage was about to take place, performed by our very own St. John the Baptist. It was a slightly surreal experience, seeing a bride and groom emerge from the house to be presented in front of the congregation, particularly as no one had really explained what was going on… After some comical banter, the knot was finally tied and we celebrated the unification with some traditional folk dancing out in the road – a bit like a ceilidh, but with everyone joining in together and with a little more improvisation! (at least in our case). Definitely a lot of fun and something to think about importing…
The next day I got to see the Sunday market in the square in the centre of town, with its collection of little craft stalls and home-made food (complete with live music – seems every day there’s some sort of celebration going on!). A nice calm way to relax before the beginning of the week…
But if I thought things would ease off after returning, I was mistaken! There’s still a lot of work to do, with hundreds of samples to be painstakingly processed and plants to be identified, and a thesis to write of course… But its quite exciting learning processes and tricks every day to try and find out the secrets of the ecology of the places we’ve seen.
So there’s been quite a bit lab work recently, with long days of drying things and weighing things, analysing the chemical composition of the material, and the slow process of plant identification. The amount of stuff we’ve collected does mean that each little step has to be repeated at least 75 times, which can get a bit mind boggling after four or five hours of painstakingly transferring little samples into tins, and coding and measuring everything.
(75 samples for checking fertility…)
(and 90 more for soil density…)
I’ve also been basically adopted by the soil department because I seem to be spending more time there than in ecology at the moment!
But it does mean I get to relive a bit of the enjoyment of the sample collection, receiving some friendly greetings from little hairy stowaways and familiar spikey aquaintances…
During the hours spent processing the material, there’s time recall each site and reflect on the days we spent out in the field, and the interactions which might be going on between the plants and their surroundings. Its also a little strange as our physical experience of the forests –the views, the smell of the earth and sensations of being under the canopy during those long days in the trees – are slowly and steadily converted into numbers and spreadsheets. I’m also not really sure why the organisation of little pots of soil in to neat grids seems to be a recurring theme in my life.
(Drying the soil and the leaf litter in the ovens..)
The week’s work was broken up with a couple of evenings spent with friends, going for a twilight run with population ecologist Gui one night, and another little gathering at Gabi’s house – which turned out to be not as relaxing as we’d hoped, as we fired up the barbeque and took in what would be the fateful game that dashed Brazil’s world cup hopes… It was a fairly tragic experience I have to say. But despite the crushing defeat, we did the Brazilian thing and broke out the guitar, forgot our troubles and sang and laughed into the night. At least as my friends remarked, they’d managed to squeeze as many public holidays out of the tournament as they possibly could have! It’s good to remain optimistic.
A fairly crammed weekend kicked off with another early start on Saturday morning, to get onto campus and weigh some more bags of leaf litter that had been cooling over night.
On the way up I was greeted by a beautiful wet and misty morning, another one of the ever-changing faces of Lavras. You never quite know what kind of a day is awaiting you until you step out of the door. And even then you can’t always be certain. Following the Fábio’s advice, its best to be prepared for any eventuality as sometimes you can experience all seasons in one day here during the winter season!
But as usual the sun broke out and the day became another glorious one, so it was time to get out of the labs for some exploration of new corners of the city that I hadn’t seen yet…
(The inside the ornate Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário – the oldest church in Lavras, around 250 years old)
Later on, after being introduced for the first time to the inside of a república (a sort of fraternity or student community house belonging to UFLA) by big mammal enthusiast Fernando, I was taken to yet another event in the town. This time it was a student-organised evening of very cool Brazilian style reggae, performed by local artists under the open sky.
On Sunday I jumped at the chance to head back out into the field to get some more experience with PhD student Evelyn, this time a little closer up in the hills relatively near Lavras – not too far from where Eduardo, his kids and I had camped all that time ago during my first week here. Of course it meant another pre-dawn wake up before hopping into Jurema again, and watching the day unfold during the drive out and up on to the cliffs.
Here Evelyn is studying the dynamics of the gallery forests (quite narrow but nevertheless fairly dense bands of woodland) that meander along the contours over the tops of the hills.
The forests here definitely had a different feel to the ones we’d spent so much time further south, with its own particular mixture of trees and bromeliads, and the cooler air of slightly higher altitudes.
By now a lot of the observations we were making were becoming second nature, measuring trees for their size and shape to add to the five years’ worth of information that had already been collected on the changing structure of the forest.
(Luiz, Evelyn and her accountant-by-day husband Daniel eyeing up a Myrcia splendens)
(Another picnic out in the field, and a wonderful quiet place to spend a sunny Sunday out of the city…)
After the hard work was done, I was treated to a little tour around the area – firstly with a little visit to the picturesque town of Carrancas, apparently often used for recording well known soap operas and tv-dramas, owing to its scenic location and traditional old buildings.
A trip to this corner of the wilds wouldn’t be complete without seeing some of the many beautiful waterfalls that this range of hills has to offer. So we rounded off our excursion with a wander along the rivers and forest trails to uncover some of these hidden treasures, all the while listening to the gentle murmurs of the water tumbling along under the trees.
So a pretty tired bunch finally arrived back at home, to witness the final chapter of the long story that has been the World Cup, Brazil 2014 (most people being fairly relieved that bitter rivals Argentina didn’t take the title…).
Its been quite a full few days since arriving back, and with just under three weeks left to go I’m wondering what other experiences and challenges may come my way. But for now its time to continue the methodical work, and to enjoy being in the department and part of the lab team. It’s definitely good to be back.
a brazilian excursion 