Client’s Project Brief | Brazil

We live in a state of Brazil called Rio Grande do Sul. We are in the southest of the country, in a biome called pampas, where the soil is very good for livestock.

As part of out history, like with Uruguay and part of Argentina, we take part in the gaúcho culture. The gaúchos were men that lived freely and liked to ride horses. In the inner parts of our state, the gaúcho culture is very strong, and it’s common to see people riding or wearing “Pilchas“.

• Those are a tradicional set of clothes, that consist of a realy large pants, white shirt, belt, ribbon, poncho (a large cloack) and a hat. It was mostly used in the traditional culture, but now you see it often in celebrations, like the 20th of September.
• 20th of September is celebrated the “gaúchos day“, on a date where, many years before, happened a revolution on our state.

Now, part of our culture adapted and embodied the culture of the immigrants who came to Brazil around the 1800s, mostly form German and Italy.

An important trait of the gaúcho culture is the food, and how we gather our families around it.

• For example, we have the “Chimarrão“, a tea likely drink that we drink in groups,in the famous “chimarrão circles“, a moment to share the drink with friends and family. For some people the chimarrão is an everyday habit.

We chose, however, to talk about “Churrasco“, wich we voted as the most important tradition of our culture. (At least for our families)

• Churrasco can be considered a cooking feast. Although we eat it very often and sometimes alone, the tradition of the churrasco is to gather the family on sundays, when we normally stay together (we call it family day). Then, the father or grandfather of the family prepares a combination of meat, that varies from pork to beef, and sometimes vegetables too. It is a moment to be around the ones you love. It is also a very long lunch, that can go until the sun sets. It has also music, chimarrão, and futebol.

The thing about churrasco is that is very demanding, one might say. You have to light up the fire, prepare the knife, clean and cut the meat, and cook it. It is a full day job for the assador (how we call the one doing it). So, as we grow old, it gets harder to be the one responsible for it. However, it is a great gesture of love preparing the churrasco, and it might be hard not being able to it. After all, it is a little pleasure of life.

We talked with our grandparents to understand how they feel about it, and one history really brought up out attention:

Luísa’s grandad has started to go blind because of his age. It’s a slow process, and he has part of his vision. But the sight is a very important part of our day to day life, and he has been strugling with being blind.He loved to cook for his family, and was the nominated assador, but now he can´t cook churrasco anymore. He sits all day by the churrasqueira (place where the churrasco is cooked) but doesn´t really move or enjoy his day.

We are seekin a product to help address accessibility challenges for older adults with vision loss so that we can keep the churrasco tradition alive for them, as it is a cherished part of our cultural heritage.