Gastavo de Melo OrlandiThe Rotary Club of Dryden's 2011-2012 Rotary Exchange Student is 17 year old Gustavo de Melo Orlandi. He hails from Amparo, Brazil.

Gustavo was our feature speaker for our October 19th lunch meeting, where he made a power point presentation on his home country, Brazil
 
presentationThe land now called Brazil was claimed by Portugal in April 1500. As a result the people speak Portugese.

On 12 October 1822, Pedro was declared the first Emperor of Brazil and crowned Dom Pedro I on 1 December 1822. His monarchy was overthrown on 15 November 1889 and since then Brazil has been a republic.

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, after Russia, Canada, China and the United States, and third largest in the Americas; with a total area of 8,514,876.599 km2.

Only the southern region of Brazil has the typical four season pattern of Canada, although the seasons are reversed. All of the rest of the country is tropical meaning it has two season, the rainy and the dry seaons. Four distinct sub-regions exist mainly two, along the coast and two in the interior. 

Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America, and the world's seventh largest economy. Major export products include aircraft, electrical equipment, automobiles, ethanol, textiles, footwear, iron ore, steel, coffee, orange juice, soybeans and corned beef. Brazil pegged its currency, the real, to the U.S. dollar in 1994 but changed the exchange regime to free-float in January 1999. at present. There are about 1.75 reals to a Canadian dollar.

The population of Brazil in 2008 was about 190 million. Citizens are heavily concentrated in the Southeastern (79.8 million inhabitants) and Northeastern (53.5 million inhabitants) regions, while the two most extensive regions, the Center-West and the North, which together make up 64.12% of the Brazilian territory, have a total of only 29.1 million inhabitants.

The largest metropolitan areas in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte. All are in the Southeastern Region, with 19.5, 11.5, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively.

Gustavo's city, Amparo is about 140 km or nearly 2 hours northwest of São Paulo.
Ampro, SP,