I have come to South America to start the road to making Africa a healthier place via yerba mate. It is a wonderful statement to make, but I must admit that I did have a panic moment when I realised that I will spend every single last penny that I own to be here for these 4.5 months, and that I do not know exactly what I am meant to do yet. What is the check-list for creating a new global commodity of trade? How do I ensure myself of being the competitive benefactor? Where do I start? ...I am not able to answer these questions yet, but I do know that nobody else has the answers either and that I am the only one that is trying to find them, or at least one of very few. Boom!

As I write this, I am sick in bed recovering from my first dose of food poisoning abroad . It was a rough 24 hours with many visits to the loo in my new residence which is built out of shipping containers - not exactly sound proof. It was a classic "bad-seafood" episode after I had finally mustered up the courage to buy my favourite type of meat, fish. Just writing about it makes my tummy turn, so that's enough said about that.

As you may remember from my previous entry, after lots of searching and negotiating, I moved into a place of my own on 31 March. In the end, I went for bad-quality/good location. The room is 2x1.5m. Here's the link to a short video showcasing my private chambers: my room . It is pretty rowdy here due to construction works, but I've managed to figure out how to sneak into the UFRGS university library to study posing as a student. For now I am trying to get into routine of studying Portuguese, exercising, writing, keeping up to date with Yerba Mate South Africa  and trying not to miss Luca too much.

Learning Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese is an organised series of colloquialisms . It reminds me of an English-language exchange student from Germany that I met once who learned how to speak English in Mitchell's plain, where she was based with a host family. In class, I'm learning formal Portuguese, but socially the language has been adapted to get the point across in as few words as possible e.g. by combining two words into one, and cutting out certain letters at the end of certain syllables. I am ace-ing it though. In retrospect, I am certainly going to find it easier to adapt from Brazilian Portuguese to European Portuguese than what it would have been like doing it the other way around. I am experimenting for the first time, actively learning songs in Portuguese to help me along. Here's one that I have learned off by heart so far: song

Excercising 
Sorry, I'm not butch enough yet to be taking photos of myself working out on the monkey bars in the park, but here is a short video of a Portoalegrian sunset over the islands of the massive Lake Guiaba: video .

There is some good news to tell: I have so far secured two short-term jobs as yerba mate apprentice, one in Brazil and the other in Paraguay. Once I can scrape the funds together I will attend the VI International Yerba Mate Congress in early May in Montevideo, Uruguay. It's an event that only happens once every four years. Also, I am going to attend the Brazilian National Festival of Yerba Mate in Venancio Aires, Brazil, also in early May. In order to save costs, I may well be doing a fair amount of hitch-hiking and camping in order to get to these places and back. It's an exciting thought. One of my res mates here is doing a physiology masters thesis on the ability of yerba mate to enhance physical exercise. He has invited me to visit him in his home-town, Florianopolis in late July to have a question-and-answer session with him and his supervising professor. Even better than that though, my girlfriend, Luca is coming to visit in July! I consider myself a very lucky man.

Thanks for the read. Keep it real.