Gallery of the Uncommon

TheRE is such a thing as too much sharing

It is said that young people stop growing by the age of 20, but here at INESC TEC, even though we are a bit more mature and over 30, we have been growing remarkably. And with the integration of new research groups, different areas and the relationship with different Higher Education institutions in several cities in the north of Portugal, the words of order are: multidisciplinarity, cooperation and sharing.

We regularly promote interactions among researchers and internal initiatives for people to get to know one another better and to know what their colleagues are doing. The traditional multicultural party, which took place in December, featured samples from cuisines of over 10 nationalities. It is a unique moment of sharing.

The girls from the communication service can confirm that. In fact, in the last party, they felt, shall we say, ‘grateful’? when they were confronted with the generosity of a Brazilian colleague who wanted them to taste his ‘chimarrão’.

Armed with the mate gourd and bombilla(*), he insisted: go ahead, taste it! Taste it! And he would shove the metal straw in their mouths so that they could taste the bitter infusion. Go ahead, taste it!!

It seems we share everything: tea, culture… and saliva. How’s that for multicultural? Thank you, Brazil!

Let’s take it with a smile, and share some spit, all for the good of INESC TEC…!

IMPORTANT (*) – For those of you who don’t know, the “chimarrão”, also known as “mate” is a typical beverage from South America, and a legacy from indigenous cultures. It is served in a gourd, and drank using  a metal straw with a filter at its base.

Photo credits: Flickr