Last night :(

Tonight was my last night in Brazil. What a crazy adventure this trip has been!

Thursday we went to the federal research lab, Fiacruz, and the Hospital Suburbia, which is a public/private hybrid hospital, and the first of its kind. The president of Fiacruz gave us a personal tour of the entire lab. The coolest thing was not the shiny equipment (of which there was a great deal), but his story and his mission. He was born in a very poor rural area and moved to the slums of Salvador at a very young age. He worked all day and went to school at night, and got good enough grades to go to the public university. From there, he worked his way up to the very top. As a result of his background, he firmly believes in opening his facility to the general public. ANYONE can come in and use the equipment, provided they have the proper training. The parking lot converts into a community soccer field at night. Churches and groups can use the auditorium space. Kids can come in and use the university library and computers. He told us jokingly that at first they had all the computers in the back, and kids would look up porn. They've since moved the computers to the front, but he said he really didn't mind when they were looking up smut: "Better them in here, safe, then out on the streets getting stabbed".

The hospital was pretty cool too. Unlike the other ones we seen so far, this one was very new, and very much like what we picture a hospital as in the United States. The federal government provides the building, and the private company provides the equipment and the doctors. People of both private and public insurance can use the hospital, although more public users tend to frequent it (it's very close to the slum areas). I opted not to go into the pediatric ICU, but I toured through everything else in the hospital, including the emergency rooms. We got back kind of late, so we opted for a fairly quiet night at the hostel.

Today was rather bittersweet. We got to sleep in because of our presentation, which was a welcome change. A few of us walked down to the salon to get waxed. I planned to go to the beach, but it was kind of rainy, and I had my presentation to finish. At 12:30, we made our last drive to UFBa and met with several of the presenters we had had over the past month. All of the presentations went well-I did mine on medical technology in Brazil. Since a lot of it focused on health communication, I'm hoping I might be abe to present it as part of my research to Spectrum. At any rate, at the end, we had cake and other goodies with our professors, and we presented them with MSU Public Health t-shirts, while we got little candomble statues with the university and program name engraved into them.

After that, it was back to the hostel for our last dinner. I'm really going to miss this place, and not just for the food. Even though Domiyana (our cook) speaks no English, and I speak very little Portuguese, she's quick with a smile and a mimed joke, usually about how the boys are eating all the food, or how much we all like potatoes (I may have done a little song and dance earlier in the month about batatas frites, and now whenever she serves them she sings the song back to me).

We decided to go out for one last bar crawl. We've done so much with Danny, Henrique, and Jau that it only seemed right. The bars themselves were nothing special this time around (except for the Mexican place, which has the most amazing nachos ever), but just driving around with a bunch of people I now really care about, singing songs at the top of our lungs really made my night.

I've decided I'm not going to bed tonight. Jodi and Sarah have to leave at 4:30 am to catch a taxi to get to the airport on time, so I'm helping Jodi pack (aka, separating all of our stuff that's been thrown in the corner), and then I'm going to watch the sunrise from the beach. I can sleep on the beach, and I can sleep on the plane.

I want to go home, but I don't want to leave.