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Life at Iracambi
Volunteering at Iracambi provides a fantastic opportunity to live in a way that is likely to be quite different to the life you are used to. Sharing with people of many different nationalities, backgrounds, skills, ages and interests. Not to mention sharing with a few bugs.
Iracambi is what you make of it. We invite volunteers to help us in Iracambi’s work if you’d like to, but we encourage you to take responsibility for their own work, experience, lifestyle and for each other. If you are not used to being be self-sufficient and need to have your hand held all the time, this might not be the best place for you. Together with your fellow volunteers you will need to find a mutually agreeable way to run
your temporary home.
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The Research Center is located on a working farm, which includes a large area of native forest as well as tree crops. There are rivers to swim in, mountains to climb, forest trails to hike, and a welcoming local community.
In your spare time you can learn about coffee (planting, picking, roasting and drinking) cheese making, the uses of medicinal
plants, as well as swapping stories with your fellow residents. You may also choose to go for a local drink, but please note that the nearest bar is a five-mile hard hike away....
Accommodation
When you arrive, you will be assigned a room in either the main Center building or a nearby smaller casinha. You will be living with other fellow volunteers and will probably be required to share a room (with someone of the same sex).
The Center is located a few kilometers apart from the farm and consists of six houses. They are traditional and simple in design -built in the same way as the houses that people in the area live in. The Center is the biggest of the volunteer houses, with four bedrooms, each sleeping two people, a living room, library and two bathrooms. The other volunteer houses all have two bedrooms, bathroom and a living room. They each sleep four people.
The houses are all well maintained and have electricity and hot showers 24 hours a day.
The Iracambi Homestay Program - a cultural exchange
Another accommodation option for volunteers is to stay in the home of a family in the local community. Participation in the program gives volunteers and researchers an entirely new and privileged insight into Brazilian life and culture, as well as providing extra income for local families.
On arrival, you will be placed in Centro, but you can apply to take part in the program at any time after your arrival. A place will be allocated depending on availability and on the fulfilment of certain criteria (for example, you must speak at least basic Portuguese).
Homestay Participant Comments
"Living with a family made all the difference to my stay at Iracambi - my family welcomed me with open arms, and I became much more than just a visitor to Brazil."
"I have made great friends, really great friends. It's an invaluable experience."
"I've learnt so much living with my Brazilian family - about real life and real people here in Minas Gerais, and also about myself and my own life in England. It's been eye-opening."
Food
The
The food at Iracambi is is provided by Dona Carminha’s Sabor da Serra catering service.
Breakfast usually consists of fruit, toast, and coffee. The food is typical Brazilian fare consists mainly of rice, beans, potatoes, salad and cake or bread.
Although it is rather difficult to be a vegetarian in Brazil, it is quite simple at Iracambi. Meat or chicken is served once or twice a week at most and there always other dishes available.
Food is bought from the local communities to ensure that it is as fresh and organic as possible.
Day to Day
Volunteers and researchers generally wake up and are ready for work by 9am, taking a break for lunch at 12.30 or so at the Refeitório.
Lunch is cooked for the volunteers on weekdays and is typical Brazilian fare. Work then continues after lunch until approximately 5pm. Depending on your project you could spend most of your time in the forest, nursery, neighbouring hills or enjoying the spectacular views from the office and classroom.
Most evenings at Iracambi are spent socializing and
activities such as reading (remember that?), playing cards, listening to music and on some days playing soccer with the locals. And if you’re up for it, the evening activities may include a trip into Limeira, for grocery shopping or a trip to the bar for a drink or two, but the drive is approximately a half an hour and the trip is generally an evening long event.
Come with an open mind. Take it as it comes. Be fearless. If you get stressed or unhappy with the way the project’s going, take the afternoon off and go for a walk in the hills. Iracambi is a wonderful place to let your mind wonder and to relax. Make the most of it when you can! If you need to, go to bed early or lie in because pretty much everything can take it out of you, especially in the beginning. And really – do watch those energy levels – the littlest things will get the better of you. And that’s okay – it’s all part of the journey. So don’t be too hard on yourself.
Location
The Research Center is situated on a working farm in the Atlantic Rainforest zone (Zona da Mata), near the village of Rosário da Limeira (lat. 21º00' S, long. 42º30' W) in the southeast of the state of Minas Gerais, five hours by road from Rio de Janeiro, or four hours from the state capital, Belo Horizonte. To see where we are click here.
We understand that volunteers and researchers will want to see lots of different parts of Brazil while they are here. Owing to our location it can be difficult for people to go much further afield than Muriaé or Viçosa – a University town - in a weekend. If you are planning to go away for more than a weekend please do let us know before you arrive so we can take this in to account.
Communications
Telephone – Since the Center only has a cell phone, it is very expensive to call out from there, especially for overseas calls. If you want to talk regularly to people overseas, it’s best to have them call you at preset times. You can use Skype for voice calls – try and use it at times when only a few people are on-line as it gets very slow when all the bandwidth is taken. We have a VOIP line too that people can call in on and you can use for calls on Iracambi business.
Internet access - Access to computers for personal usage is limited, as work has priority, but if it doesn't interfere with anyone else’s work computers are usually available for personal usage after 7 pm. If there are a lot of people need to use computers, the volunteer manager will set up a rotation to ensure that everyone has access. To avoid any frustrations if you use a computer a lot, you could always bring your own, as we also have wireless internet access.
Post - The post is collected from time to time from the nearby village of Limeira. Letters to and from Europe take around 2 weeks and parcels 6-7 weeks. From the US, letters take about 10 days to arrive, and parcels about 5 weeks. We recommend that you tell your loving friends and relatives not to send you expensive presents by mail, as you could end up paying hefty customs duties.
Visitors
By general agreement with volunteers and researchers, we have decided that people should not have friends coming to stay here for a day or two to visit: it disrupts the existing dynamics too much. There are hotels in Muriaé which they can stay in.
Join the Group
There's an Iracambi group on Facebook which we hope you'll join and use it meet survivors of the Iracambi Experience. Sign in or sign up to Facebook, and look for the Iracambi group or open this page.
More Information
On the news page, there are some quotes about us, and a link to a YouTube film that a volunteer put up.Of course, you've already seen the Iracambi film, haven't you.
Any questions you have can be answered by e-mail:volunteers@iracambi.com |
