Here's a breakdown of our day today:
930 - We met with the coordinator of economic and business studies at Suframa, which helps manage the Manaus free trade zone. I was surprised to see how many companies do business here...LG, Pepsi, Nokia, Honda, Samsung, etc. The speaker told us they make motorcycles a lot faster here than in Japan. I thought she said something like 20 seconds but Eboni just gave me a weird look when I said that so I could be wrong.
1030 - We headed over to the CBA, which is a big R&D center sponsored by Suframa. The place has 25 labs and a biodiversity showroom.
12ish - We went to this pretty cool restaurant right on the water. The menu consisted pretty much of all fish, with some batatas fritas and arroz mixed in. Courtney and I split the fish. I probably ate about 90% and it came with some delicious plaintains.
3? - We went to Inpa, which is the National Institute for Amazon Research. We met with two doctors; one was from Massachusetts but he's been living in Manaus for the last 33 years. He talked about deforestation and global warming. He mentioned that if Brazil opens up a proposed highway that it's going to link half of the Amazon to this arc of deforestation on the eastern coast of Brazil. He's got a really cool mustache. The other doctor was more into human psychology. She started a program 15 years ago to make children more aware of the environment. Inpa is surrounded by a less fortunate population who used to come into the center, sleep there, kill the animals, etc. So she started a program called the Young Guides of the Bosque da Ciencia where these kids spend time learning how to become guides. I think the program has been pretty successful and they've been starting similar programs in other parts of the city.
We came back to the hotel after that, caught a little R&R and then went to a Brazilian steakhouse. I'll leave that part to Demond. I think he's going to post some pictures too.
Glad to hear you made it to work. Let's make sure it's a little warmer when we return.
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Caitrin,
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Sounds like it was busy day. Maybe there is a motorcycle coming off the line every 20 seconds or something. I bet the seafood and probably the meat last night is really fresh and tastes pretty good. I did not realize there were as many companies in Manaus as well. I think the Sony visit you guys are supposed to have sounds line one of the more interesting ones.
The roads are clear now so there is not major issue with the snow. It was incredibly windy though. Tell Demond to send me some pics.
Talk to you guys later.