You know when you haven’t talked to a close friend in a long time? And how the longer it goes without talking, the harder it is to pick up the phone to call that friend? It becomes procrastination for no good reason at all. I’ve come to realize though, that maybe it’s because the feeling of catching up about so many things is overwhelming even though you really want to talk to that person. Do you sympathize with this feeling? Well, that’s how I feel about our blog right now. But I’m here, digging myself out of the hole – ready to fill you in. The good news in all this time procrastinating is that we’ve come up with some fun and interesting post ideas – so please don’t lose faith, keep following!
Okay – buckle your seat belts, it’s going to be a long one. Or at least make sure you’re in a comfortable chair.
As you can see from our latest (very short) post, we’re back in Brazil! We’ve been settling into our little house in Picinguaba for almost two weeks now. Eleven days to be exact, which is the longest we’ve stayed in one bed for the past 3 months. It feels great. I’ve started to regain some sense of normalcy – like exercise, healthy and controlled eating, reading and painting. All part of longer-term goals I have for our six months in Picinguaba – on top of big career moves and experiences, of course.
Regarding our happy home, I’m sure you’ll be happy-for-me to know that we have, for the most part, a fully functional kitchen. A four burner stone and an oven – yup, an oven (can you see the big smile on my face? . . . that comes from 8 months of closing my eyes every time I scroll over delicious baked goods or casseroles on Foodgawker). So, our kitchen, supplemented with an $18 Target toaster oven and my mini-cuisinart schlepped from the states, is awesome. Now we just need a few more things like a pot and a pan to replace the $2 aluminum stand-ins we’ve been given that are surely killing us slowly, and a baking sheet or two. So far we’ve already conquered the following dinner menus: pumpkin whole-grain risotto, sausage pizza, pesto pasta, quesadillas and guacamole, hash browns with eggs, lentil burgers and hummus wraps. Can you see me glowing?
Okay, on to more business related things.
Since we’ve been in Brazil we spent 8 days in São Paulo catching up at the office and being hosted at night by our awesome friend, Marina. We spent a lot of time with Hans – a German turned French and Brazilian man with incredible experience in some high-end hotels, including the Fasano in São Paulo and Rio. He’s joined our team to help with the opening of the new hotel at Fazenda Catuçaba. He’s been wonderful to work with so far, has a wealth of knowledge we’re appreciative of and has the motivation to help us conquer our goals while working at Picinguaba and Fazenda Catuçaba. We also spent a good amount of time catching up with Emmanuel and prepping him for his three-week trip to Europe.
After our stay in São Paulo we made a quick day trip to the Fazenda to catch up with Emmanuel Cabale on all the things happening there. Though we hoped the construction of the three farmhouses (the hotel rooms) would be further along, they are shaping up quite nicely and in some rooms, floors and ceilings are being finished. It’s very exciting to see it all come together – after 6 years in the business of designing resorts, it’s really rewarding to see the buildings physically go up! During our day on the ground we worked on plans to improve a few things in the main house (for example: cutting interior steps from the dining room to the basement and adding two bathrooms) and walked around to gather our thoughts about landscape improvements.
After a full day of catch-up and work we went to our favorite “beyond organic” farm – Fazenda Alfheim. Because they deserve much more of the spotlight than this post would allow, I’m saving the good stories for another day. Stay tuned, but know we had a wonderful stay with Rance, Lone and Esben – milking cows, feeding piglets, learning a ton and enjoying truly excellent company. We also learned how to play cribbage and have continued the competition here at Casa Jones. (Running tally is Z-2, J-1.)
We arrived to Picinguaba on Sunday with Emmanuel Cabale (Manu), moved into our new home and the next day hit the ground running working on various things. Jeff has worked his magic once again and has already created two financial models, one for the Fazenda works and another for hotel operations at Picinguaba, in addition to a few other financial models to help these businesses get back on track. I’ve been multi-tasking, per usual, on many fronts including helping to develop marketing text, new logos and an opening webpage for the Fazenda. I’ve come up with a few designs for the fireplace and the entry bridge at the Fazenda as well, which has been fun to put pencil to paper again after collecting some precedent imagery. Not having the resources of an architecture firm’s library can be painful at times, but I’m making good use of some web resources.
We’ve also begun inserting ourselves into the workings of Pousada Picinguaba. It’s already proving to be new and interesting work. We started our week off with a special guest – Dave Matthews – who was visiting with some friends from South Africa after a show in São Paulo. We spent a little time chatting with the three South Africans who have some really great projects in Africa. If you have a minute after this novel of a post, check these places out: The Cradle, Monogham Farm, and Uncharted Africa. So this threw us right into a role of mingling with guests, which we’ll get into a routine of doing more. We have also been working with the staff to help move a few things forward at the hotel, such as staff meetings and involvement, quality control checks and accounting. We’re having a blast so far, keeping very busy. We typically work on our computers at our kitchen table, which faces out over the beautiful view. We have no complaints.
In addition, we’re working on our Portuguese – we even went to the elementary school today with Amelie (the French/Portuguese Pousada intern) to talk to a teacher about exchanging English lessons to the kids for some Portuguese guidance. I hope this works out, primarily because I think it would be really great to get to teach little ones how to say apple.
Regarding our personal quest to settle into some sort of stable career after this is all said and done, we’ve officially set up a company in the US. It was easy and efficient, a whole different world from the process we’re looking into in Brazil. This is the case for a number of reasons, the first of which being that we’re legal US residents and citizens. The other reasons go into why it’s so difficult to do business in Brazil in the first place (check out Jeff’s post on this from a few months back, click here). Anyways, with the help of some good friends, including a few lawyers, we’re up and running as Rooted Journeys LLC.
What will we do with this company? Well, we hope to slowly unveil that to you over the next six months as we share with you our explorations, process, thoughts, and realities.
Thanks for hanging in there through this long update. We look forward to sharing some fun things with you over the next six months – so please bounce back with comments so we know you’re out there!
P.S. A quick shout-out to my elementary school teachers who follow our blog and tend to be our most frequent commenters – you continue to inspire me after all these years, thank you!
