Another short post

Hey all!

Here's another short post to tide you over until I have the time and motivation to write out the full blogs.

Friday

• Bought ALL THE THINGS in Pelourinho
• I am officially addicted to bargaining
• Went on another bar crawl with our now very good friends
• Had the best margaritas outside of Mexico (not that I would know because my family keeps going without me!!!)
• Danced with about 7 different people

Saturday

• Woke up waaaay to early
• Drove 2 hours to Praia de Forte
• OMG I want to live here. Goodbye Michigan!
• LONG walk on the beach to the turtle center
• BABY TURTLES!
• And because my camera hates aquariums, the battery is dying and I have to be super selective about my photos
• Did I mention the baby turtles?!
• And nurse sharks, and tides pools, and BIG turtles!
• Drove to the middle of no-where and dove into the ocean at sunset.
• The party van got stuck, but 14 people are pretty powerful.

Anyway, today I am sleeping at the beach, so I will hopefully have more for you tonight :)

Sorry!

I've been really, really busy this week and haven't had time to blog. I'm working on a post right now, but in case it doesn't get up until tomorrow, know that I am alive and well and having the time of my life right now. Seriously, the past few days have been absolutely AMAZING!!!!!!

Some highlights:

• Buying sea shell critter from a local healthcare and physical therapy community center
• Getting fed by EVERYBODY
• Getting to speak to some Candomble elders in a Quilombo village
• Eating fresh seafood at the yacht club
• The return of our favorite translator
• Having a midnight picnic
• Another late night beach session

Anyway, we're going to do some shopping, and I think we're going out on a bar crawl tonight, but I just wanted to give a quick update. I'll have the longer one up soon, I promise!

Love you all,
B

Monday, Monday

I had a pretty darn relaxing weekend.

After all the festivities from the week, I got to sleep in a bit on Saturday. When my room finally all got out of bed, we decided to head down to the local beauty spa. Mani/pedis (and other beauty treatments) are really cheap here, and they’re regulated by a federal health surveillance team, so it’s all safe. I opted for a mani/pedi/eyebrow wax day. My other roommates got haircuts and waxing treatments. It was a little intimidating since none of us besides Mariana spoke Portuguese, but we made it work. I’m planning on going back before I head back home…get all polished up!

We went back to Pelhorinho Saturday afternoon and did some shopping at the market. We also toured St. Francis church. The church was gorgeous…the main area is covered in gold and has thousands of deities and faces carved into the walls. It’s a basque church, and the only one in Pelhorinho that has two towers…all of the other churches could only afford one. And the shopping…….I can only say one thing: CHAOS! There are hundreds of shops crammed on top of each other, and all the owners want to barter and make you try things on. I mostly did research (what can I say, I like to get a feel for everything before I buy!), but I did get a hammock and a painting. If anyone wants anything in particular, let me know…I’m getting the rest of my souvenirs on this Saturday. When we got back, everyone else went to a reggae club, but I decided to some much needed R&R , and read the last Hunger Games book.

Sunday was pretty much a lazy day. We woke up and immediately went to the beach. It rained for a little bit, but I stuck it out until the sun came back out and got a little more tan (which is still amazing to me!). The rest of the day was spent making bruschetta, playing card games, and generally just lounging about.

Today was a pretty good day at class. Our first lecture was on technology and innovation within the Brazilian Healthcare system. It focused more on the financial aspect of it than the actual science of it, but since I’m writing my paper on this topic, I still found it pretty fascinating. The 2nd lecture was on the private healthcare systems in Brazil, and how they complement/support the public system. It was a little number heavy, but the overall message was interesting. We got lunch at the university café, and then wandered about to find some ice cream. When we got back, we had a shorter day and just got to work on our presentations. Had it been nice out, we would have high-tailed it to the beach, but as it was, it was down pouring rain. Since the weather has been mostly good, I can’t really complain however. We played more card games and I sorted my laundry (exotic, I know). I’ve been spending the rest of the evening planning out what activities I want to do the rest of the time I’m here.

Tomorrow we’re going back to Pelhorinho for the Tuesday night street party. I think I’m going to try to check out the old lighthouse Wednesday night, and on Thursday we’re heading downtown to see the Body World exhibit and FINALLY see Harry Potter. We’re also going into the shanty towns for one of our field trips this week, so it should be a good time.

Hope everyone back in Michigan is surviving the heat wave!

Last days of VdC

Thursday was fun, albeit tiring. We started out in the rural part of the district. Imagine if some of the Indian reservations in the US were transplanted right next to Grand Rapids…that’s kind of what this was like. You could still see city skyscrapers, but the town that we were in was nothing more than little plastered up houses and tumbleweeds. The healthcare center here was very small, but it reminded me why it’s so important to have some sort of a public healthcare system. If the federal government wasn’t paying to have a doctor and a nurse stay at this center, these people would probably have nothing. It’s a good 2 hours by donkey cart, and even longer walking into the city. For these people, whose entire day is filled with trying to make sure they have enough food, traveling down to the city center for a vaccine just isn’t going to happen. However, the center provides vaccines, maternity care, and can help them get set up with rides if they do need to go into the city for something more serious.

We also visited the orthodontia center. It was really cool, but a few things bothered me. First of all, there were lots of people waiting, but no one had any procedures going on so we could tour, so I felt very intrusive. Secondly, we are apparently big news in this town, so they sent a reporter and a camera crew to follow us. This would have been fine, but it caught me really off guard, and they were really in our faces. Luckily, everyone knew that it made me uncomfortable, so we made a kind of game about it, protecting me from the “paparazzi”. We went back to the same steakhouse for dinner, and it was just as good as the first night. The owner recognized us and brought out the really choice cuts of meat. We ended up getting a photo with him because, hey, why not?

Friday was probably the best school day of the trip. We started at the clinical laboratory center. They basically do all the lab work for all of VdC. We got to look at some samples of common bacteria under the microscope, but what I found most fascinating was the sheer efficiency of the place. We got there at 9, and there were probably around 100 people waiting. When we left at 10, all but maybe 3 or 4 of them were gone.

Our next and last stop in VdC was the maternity hospital. This was amazing. We toured the whole hospital, including the NICU. I think this visit really shattered all of our conceptions of what a hospital should be. In the US, our focus is on individual care: you need your own bed, your own room, your own personalized meal plan, your own doctor, your own surgical team. Everything needs to look nice and smell nice and the sheets had better be 400 thread count or someone’s maternity hormones are gonna go off someone, am I right? In Brazil, the focus is almost the opposite. Maternity care and giving birth is a community event within the hospital. Mothers who give birth to underweight babies all live together in the same room. Up to 8 kids (and their parents) can share a room. Obviously those who need to be quarantined have their own room, but there are very few people that it comes down to that. Breast milk is shared: because so many women have HIV/AIDS, there is a large donation site within the hospital that non-infected mothers can donate to. It goes through a very thorough screening process, but most mothers participate. The overall cost of the hospital is very cheap too. They’ve taken out all the niceties that pervade American hospitals, and focus only health.

After we finished up at the hospital, we were off to get a quick bite of lunch and back to the airport. It’s a little bit crazy at Brazilian airports-there really isn’t security. When we left Salvador, we had our bags x-rayed and we walked through a metal detector, but that was it. We didn’t have to take off our shoes, take out our laptops, or put our liquids in baggies. If you wanted to bring a large bottle of water through, you just had to take a drink of it to prove that it was actually water. When we left from VdC, we didn’t even have to do that. A security guard checked my ticket, and they had a standby guard. That was it. After having to go through so many checkpoints in the US airports, it was kind of startling.

When we finally got back to the hostel, I pretty much crashed. We played some card games out in the courtyard, but we were all pretty exhausted. I did realize something though….the hostel feels like home :)

More photos!

Vitoria da Conquista

I am exhausted.

Sorry about not blogging the past few days….it’s been a little bit rough on the south side of the hemisphere. Between crazy class sessions that go on forever, never ending bus rides, and a flight to Vitoria da Conquista, I’ve pretty much been sleeping, eating, or studying.

Monday was actually sort of a relaxing day-we only had class in the morning. They gave us the afternoon off to go to the beach because we were going to the annual health conference later that night. As usual, the beach was amazing. We grabbed hamburgers and OJ on the way (and the OJ was the best I’ve ever had), and plonked down on the beach for a good three hours. Once again, I did not get burned! The health conference was very….different. It’s open to anyone, and the public is encouraged to attend. While we couldn’t understand much of what they were saying, we were able to get a feel for the overall mood of the room. First of all, it was packed. There were probably over 300 people there, and it was just the opening night (the conference goes on for three days). And people were ANGRY. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much passion at any type of conference. The main debate while we were there was better pay for technical workers, and both sides got pretty fired up.

Tuesday began normally with class, but after lunch we hopped on a plane to Vitoria da Conquista, which is a city about the size of Grand Rapids, located more inland and in the mountains. It’s VERY different from Salvador. It almost looks like the US southwest-very dry, kind of like a desert, with red dirt that sticks to everything. It’s a much slower paced town than Salvador as well. The main modes of transportation here are motorcycles and donkeys. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see donkey-pulled carts with 5 or 6 kids piled on the back while we drive to the hospital. When we first got here, we got to meet the Vice Mayor, who talked about the history of the city, and then presented us with the flags of Brazil, Bahia, and Vitoria da Conquista. We ended up getting dinner at a traditional Brazilian steakhouse. It was probably the best meal of the trip. Sides included bacon and flour flavored beans, French fries (I mean, batatas frites), rice, salsa (non spicy, so it’s just chopped up tomatoes and garlic, etc), and potatoes in mayonnaise, which is a traditional dish in Bahia. For the meat portion of the meal, our host came around with huge steaks on skewers and sliced off bits whenever we wanted it. We had 3 different cuts of beef, chicken hearts, chicken sausage, chicken wrapped in bacon, and one cut of pork. Because we had such a huge group, and because it was a slow night, the owner gave us a great deal. It only cost us each R12…which is about $8 in the US. You just can’t beat it.

Yesterday (Wednesday), we visited the senior citizen center and the reference center. The senior citizen center was gorgeous-very clean, outdoor pool, smiling workers, hummingbird bushes, and a yoga center. I missed most of the lecture though. Our translator was horrible…her English was about as good as my Portuguese. Normally I would be more empathetic, but MSU refused to pay Mariana to be our translator, and we “had” to have one, so they just hired whoever they could get last minute. I got really frustrated, and combined with my lack of sleep from the night before, I just had to get out. I ended up sitting out by the hummingbird bush. The reference center was cool, but kind of backwards. They basically schedule all the 2nd level appointments for VdC. So, if your primary care doctor tells you you need to see a diabetes specialist, the reference center is the one that sets up the appointment. That part makes sense. However, the patients don’t get to pick their days or times, or even offer suggestions. The reference center picks a date, and then the appointment notification is driven via motorcycle to the person’s house. They can either say yes, or they can request another time, which means the drivers go through the whole system again. We also ended up doing some short visits with the occupational health center and the STD health center. We decided to get some pizza for dinner (I think Brazilians may be more obsessed with pizza than Americans…every 3rd restaurant offers it), and I went to bed rather early.

I'll be updating more retrospectively this weekend....love you all.

B

Epic photo post :)

Pelhorino!

Pelhorino, again.

The group :)

Candbomble deities of the water

At the secretary of health

Giving blood

Ambulance