Small Farm

Today we visited the little farm of some friends. It was a beautiful day and I saw a lot of new plants there.

These cuttings were made by hand!

Caterpillar (7 cm!) with orange antennas

We drove a tractor and ate delicious food cooked on a wood-burning stove!

Quiabo

Quiabo with chicken is a very typical and tasty food. It used to be considered a dish of the poor people, but nowadays everyone likes it.

Bucha

When dried completely, these buchas or Egyptian cucumbers are used as scrubbing bath sponges. These sponges you can buy all over the world.

Mixirica

I was really excited about how many different types of oranges and mandarins they have here. We walked through the garden and I ate at least eight citrus fruits and every single one had a very distinct and different taste. I never knew that oranges could have so many different flavours!

Kiwi

Mandioca

This is the clay house of a very jealous little bird. Supposedly the male bird captures the female and closes the entrance of the house when he suspects his wife cheating on him. They also change the side of the entrance depending of the wind direction.

Abacaxi (Pineapple)

Papaya

Taioba

Taioba is cut and cooked a bit like spinach, but it has a different taste.

Torneio Leiteiro

A bit like the shows once a year is very town in Australia, they have a Torneio Leiteiro in every town in Minas Gerais once a year. Minas Gerais is a state of Brazil which is especially known for the milk production. Every year the farmers use these events to show off with their cows and/or sell them in an auction.

Every night they have a competition between the cows. They measure the weight of one liter of milk from every cow. The cow with the "heaviest" milk wins. The overall winner at the end of the event gets the chance to compete in the regional event.

For the rest of the community these Torneios Leiteiros are the perfect opportunity to meet friends and family and have fun with bull riding, dance and foods. On the next foto you can see a variety of sweets all made with coconut.

Pinhão

Pinhão is a type of nut I tried today for the first time. You can cook it water or bake it in the oven. After that comes the difficult part to peal them out of there shells. They are a bit like sweet chestnuts (Esskastanien) but the taste is a bit like potato as well. They grow on high pine trees.

Morro do Cristo

Morro do Cristo is the look out of Juiz de Fora. From here you can see over all the city.

Capivaras

Here in Brazil I saw capivaras for the first time! In English these animals are called "capybaras", in German "Wasserschweine". I'm very fascinated by these cute animals.
Capybaras are the largest living rodents (Nagetiere) and closely related to guinea pigs. The adults reach a size of 100-130 cm length, 50-60 cm height and up to 70 kg (the record is 90 kg!).

Their food is similar to rabbits or guinea pigs with a lot of grass but also aquatic plants. They normally live in groups of 5 to 20 animals close to the water side. They are very good swimmers and divers. 

They can get up to 10 years old and are quite robust. That's why they even manage to live in very polluted rivers in some Brazilian cities, where wast water treatment plants sadly simply don't exist. Swimming they barely show the eyes and nostrils above the water (a bit like crocodiles). 

Markets in Juiz de Fora

Every Sunday there are markets along the river in Juiz de Fora. On these markets you can find really EVERYTHING! They sell a mixture of new and old things, furniture, tools, clothes, cars, car parts, fruits, vegetables, living animals and also a few things that some people might consider rubbish (old empty bottles, shoes that are more than used, broken electronics,...)

Bolo de Cenora - Carrot Cake

A very typical cake here in Brazil is Bolo de Cenora. It's a carrot cake with a special chocolate icing. I like it a lot and the recipe is quite simple!

You just mix
3-4 grated carrots,
2 cups sugar,
1 cup oil,
3 cups flour,
3 egg yolks,
3 whipped egg whites and
1 spoon of backing powder.
Then you back the cake for 30-40 minutes at 240°C (this is the temperature for gas ovens, maybe a little less for electronic ovens...).

While you let the cake cool down a bit, you can prepare the icing. Therefore you cook
4 spoons of milk with
1 spoon of butter,
3 spoons of sugar and
3 spoons of cocoa powder.
Then you take a fork and make little holes in the cake before spreading out the icing.
Done! Enjoy ;-)

Geography lesson

I was asked where exactly I am for my exchange, so I thought it would be best to show you on a map. To give you a better understanding of the huge dimensions of Brazil, I'll give you so recent numbers as well.

Brazil is much bigger than Germany (ca. 23.6 timers bigger) and even bigger than Australia (ca. 1.1 times).

Capital		Brasília
Largest city		São Paulo
Official languages		Portuguese
Ethnic groups (2010)		47.73% White 43.13% Pardo 7.61% Black 1.09% Asian 0.43% Amerindian
Government		Federal presidentialconstitutional republic
-	President	Dilma Rousseff
Area
-	Total	8,515,767 km2 (5th biggest) 3,287,597 sq mi
-	Water (%)	0.65
Population
-	2014 estimate	202,768,562
-	Density	23.8/km2
GDP (PPP)		2015 estimate
-	Total	$3.259 trillion (7th)

The country consists of 26 states and one Federal District. The state in which I live at the moment is Minas Gerais (red in the next map). Only this state has still more than twice the size of Germany. 

Within Minas Gerais I live in the city Juiz de Fora. On the next map I marked it with a little arrow. As you can see it's a bit inland in the mountains. It's about 200 km (or 3 bus hours) from Rio de Janeiro and about 550 km (or 8 bus hours) from São Paulo.