Giving Tuesday and Food Feature

River at Iracambi swollen and muddy from the rains.

This week has been a slow one. It has been varying degrees of rainy all week, and thus most days were spent inside working on the computer. This has been good for me, as I have been steadily gaining back my energy all week after last weekend's food poisoning adventures. Some mornings I could hardly get out of bed, while on others I woke up feeling energized, only to sleep away the afternoon. Now, more than a week later, I have finally regained most of my strength.

Much of the work I did do revolved around one of two things: firstly, my application for scholarships at Indiana University. Turns out, being accepted to a school is only the first step, and there are many more applications and forms to fill out once you have become a part of their system. The second thing we at Iracambi have all been working on is preparing for Giving Tuesday. For those who do not know, Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 28th this year) is followed by Black Friday, which is followed by Cyber Monday. After this weekend of spending, a global movement of giving back has begun, known as Giving Tuesday. On this day, December 3rd (this year), organizations including Iracambi campaign to raise as much money as possible through donations in 24 hours. These donations are made through the "Global Giving" platform, which helps these organizations by matching donations (to an extent) and giving cash prizes to those organizations that raise the most money. And here is where you come in: if you are willing and able to donate a few dollars (or more than a few, if you are capable of doing so) on Giving Tuesday, you will be helping reforest the Atlantic Rainforest. It only takes $5 USD to plant a tree and monitor it for 2 years, thereby ensuring its future. I will make another blog post providing more information and links to the Global Giving website in the near future.

Now for something a little more fun: what does Ronja eat every day? Let me tell you: I don't think I've gone a day without rice and beans since I got to Brazil. Which is not a bad thing; I love rice and beans! But after 4 weeks of rice and beans every day (yes, I've been here a month, wow!), I have started really missing other foods. What wouldn't I give for some pancakes, or some ice cream, or some nachos... It is such a luxury to be able to go to the store and buy whatever food your heart desires, or go to a restaurant without fear of food poisoning and eat whatever you want. When I get back to the states, I'm going be so excited about the food... Anyway, enough wishful thinking. Here are some pictures of what my meals look like on a daily basis.

This is approximately what breakfast looks like every day, with occasional variation in the fruits and the sweet bread. Eggs or cheese are a rarity.

On any given day, we usually eat the same thing for lunch and dinner, so I do not need to show two different sets of pictures. Anyway, it's lunch time now and I'm excited to see what we're having today! (in addition to rice and beans of course).