The thing that impressed us about studying Mesopotamia was how different their geography and climate was. You will see how similar the food, irrigation, and agriculture are between Graded and Brazil with Mesopotamia. The most common food of Mesopotamia was bread and beer. According to the "Epic of Gilgamesh", beer was one of the blessings of civilization. The diet included lots of raw food, especially vegetables and fruits.  Here at Graded, we have rice and beans everyday, so we can get energized. We usually drink juice at lunch. Farmers today usually live in big farms. In Brazil, beef is one of the most important kinds of livestock to Brazilian farmers. Farmers depended a lot on cattle to get beef. Between 1970 and 1991, the beef cattle herd grew a lot. It grew about 3.1 percent average yearly rate. But not just that, we also have other quantity of foods.

Farmers, there, lived along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. These farmers got together to control the rivers. Controlling rivers required lots of planning and cooperation. They also built dikes and irrigation systems.  Population in Brazil is growing more and more each day. In Mesopotamia, people who lived inside city walls paid and extra amount because they were protected.    It is impersonating how two different civilizations have so much in common!

It's very interesting the difference between the climate, weather and clothing of Mesopotamia and Brazil. Our community's climate is sub-tropical and has a high elevation. While Mesopotamian's climate was dessert. São Paulo weather doesn’t have striking temperature differences, or any weather that is destructive, nor are there any natural disasters like heavy earthquakes or floods. Mesopotamian's weather was very hot but rarely rained. Brazilian clothes are very different with many different decorations. Most of us love to wear clothes according to the latest styles. In urban areas, people dress in a European fashion, but mostly Italian style. People normally use more natural colors like black and white. We love to dress for special occasions. In country religions, it is common to wear more traditional clothes. At the same time, Mesopotamia made their clothing by using natural resources that were available to them. They made from wool or flax, which Sumerians could raise and harvest. How interesting, that heavier clothing would be worn in the winter and lighter clothing would be worn in the summer, just like us! Well, I hope you got a little taste of ours and Mesopotamians weather, climate and clothing!

The domestication of plants and animals was very important for the Mesopotamians like it is for us. Some animals in Brazil are used for agriculture work. But, others we use them as pets. We domesticate them so they do what we say. Some of these animals are: dogs ,cats, and fish. In Mesopotamia, the animals that they domesticated where sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs. They domesticated poultry animals. They domesticated them for their meat and skin. Another important thing for the Mesopotamians and us are the plants. We have some parks with green areas which we don’t use for agriculture work, even though, we do domesticate some of the plants for food. We manly eat three meals a day. We eat variety of food from places outside of the city and the country. The Mesopotamians also domesticated plants. Almost all of the plants they had where use for agriculture. The food they ate were mainly peas, beans, lettuces, garlic, cucumbers, grapes, apples, melons and figs. They got this food by domesticating the plants. The Mesopotamians and we have a lot of things in common but we do them in different ways.

Here at Graded we feel very happy because we have a positive view of our lives. Here in Sao Paulo, the climate is sub-tropical. There are no temperature differences, nor any destructive weather. In Sao Paulo we have two rivers, unfortunately they are polluted, and because of this we can’t get natural resources. While the Mesopotamians also had two main rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates which they used to get natural resources from. Mesopotamia habitat of dessert but they did have a long growing seasons by rivers. Their climate was mostly hot with poor rainy seasons. The rivers didn’t flood in a regular basis bu they did flood a lot when they did. The Mesopotamians had a very negative world view of their climate because there was always worried about when is going to rain and when is not. Overall, Mesopotamians had more negative world view then we have, although Mesopotamia was very successful.

Pictures: “Sumerian city ”. http://www.strayreality.com/Lanis_Strayreality/Pics3/sumeri14.jpg. April 25, 2008

by K.C, S.R, and M.A