Recycle

I barely slept last night because I was up hacking my lungs out and it was especially hot in my room because of the recent rain. I am going to bed at pretty decent times, but I think it is safe to say that it is impossible for me to get quality sleep here. I thought I would become accustomed to the heat by now, but I don't think that is ever going to actually happen. I wake up several times throughout the night drenched in sweat and I don't even use any type of cover. I guess it makes sense that I am burning up down here because I am usually really hot back home even in the winter. Anyways, its all part of the experience, right?

Nicole and I met a man named Itamarco on the street outside of Daniel's apartment and he took us to Region 3 of Vila Velha (I usually volunteer in Region 5) Itamarco is a micro-financier/political activist that is trying to clean up Region 3, especially focusing on the watersheds. One river (or rather canal) used to be a profitable fishing stream but now it is very polluted and the fisherman moved away. He has several projects running to try to change this condition. One project is called Banco Verde (Green Bank) and turned out to be my job for today. Banco Verde (shown below) is run by a man named Joao who is also a political activist/volunteer/mason. Banco Verde accepts cans and plastic bottles from people and in turn issues Banco Verde currency. This currency is only good in their small grocery store which runs on donations from supermarkets. It only contains the essentials but it give people a very easy way to attain the necessary foods. I really liked the structure of this NGO and I think that it has a pretty self-sustainable business plan. However, the business plan revolves around Joao who is a short energetic stone mason with a opaque cataract in his left eye. He has many ideas for Banco Verde and you can catch his passion for the project even through the shroud of the language barrier.

I really liked this manual labor and I felt like this place was much more active than CADEC. I felt like Nicole and I were pretty useful here and that they were really happy that we were helping out. However, I couldn't have picked a worse day to be working and sweating outside in the extreme heat. I was coughing all day long and I just couldn't stop sweating. I thought about how much my Papa would like this hot work with recycling and I came to realize that this is one area we are not cut from the same cloth. My body really just doesn't do that well in extreme hot. I have always thought that I really liked working in the heat, but this near 100% humidity really throws me a curveball and my body is working hard to adjust.

The picture shows only about half of the plastic which was turned in while I was present. It was a stinky, hot, sticky job but I felt like I was helping to make a difference in the community.

A great thing about this project is that it gives people an incentive to recycle and anyone can do it. The man pictured below was a mute (we got along pretty well) and he brought in two loads of this size on his wagon. He earned enough to buy enough food for probably two weeks (two large boxes) and apparently he comes in twice a week! This place is really making a difference in the recycling habits of this community!
We left Banco Verde around 2 and went to our Portuguese class at UFES. For some reason I had thought that I should bring an extra shirt today and I was really glad that I did (we weren't told what we would be doing, we thought we were going to be shadowing Itamarco all day). My cough got a lot worse at UFES and by the time I got back to my place I was feeling pretty crappy but all the pharmacies had already closed. I finally was able to watch an episode of house that I had been queuing up on my internet for 2 days. This was probably the second time that I have watched English entertainment in over a month. I tried to go to bed early but couldn't fall asleep. I got to talk to Alex on Skype and she caught me up with all the happenings back home. Thanks Alpo!