Local

Our food is so local, it isn't even funny. Coming from the US where local is such a big trend right now, this makes me laugh. Half of the fruit we get is picked from the trees that line our streets. I just looked out the back window of our house and noticed that the factory that makes our bread/crackers/pasta is literally in our back yard. Veggies and other fruits are local. Meat is local. I've rarely picked up a packaged item at the store and not seen our state listed as the origin. And we live in a small state. It is amazing, and I think we are much healthier because of this. Brazil is so funny. There are so many things wrong, but this is something that is so so right!

Maps of Pernambuco and Brazil!

I really need to print these out so I can study the states. I found these in the cartorio (little government office/registry place) near our house. It was a pretty cool old map, had the climates and all sorts of other info on it. 

 Pernambuco is a goofily long state. The Northeast of Brazil is sort of like the Northeast of the US. Crammed full of all the small states. The rest of the country is pretty regular, except for the more jungly parts, which are bigger states. I'd love to drive all the way west into Pernambuco at some point. We've gone about as far as Caruaru, which if you click on the map, a larger image should pop up, and you should be able to see. It's about a sixth of the state's size off the coast. The terrain changes greatly from our coastal forested (okay, it's not forested anymore, but it should be! It's full of sugarcane now) area to the mountainous arid West.