YAAAAAAWN! O, gente! It’s been a bit of an off-week so far, but that also means that I’ve had my fair share of mistakes to learn from. I woke up Monday feeling stuffy with a sore throat so I just went for a short run and studied a bit before my 11:00 class. After lunch I went to meet with Katie to go to CAASAH (the home for children and adults with HIV/AIDS). Katie was about 15 minutes late because she was coming from a class beforehand, but while I waited for her I watched the buses going by to see which stop we needed to wait at. The name of the bus we needed was Ribeira, but the trick is that there are 4 different lines. (We needed Ribeira/Luis Tarquinio). When in doubt, I always ask the guy who sells coconut water and he told us to wait in front of the theater. After about 10 minutes we see a Ribeira go by but it doesn’t stop when we flag it down. We moved to the stop at the corner because the buses all stop there because it’s an intersection. We wait another 15-20 minutes, so by the time the next Ribeira passes it is already 4:10 and we were supposed to arrive at CAASAH by 4:00. We saw on the side of the bus that it passes through Luis Tarquinio though the name of the route was something else that I can’t remember now (maybe Ribeira Liberdade). Katie got on the bus and asked the money changer if the bus passed the street that CAASAH is on but the lady seemed to put a mental block as soon as she saw that Katie was a blond with pale skin and furrowed her eyebrows before she even asked the question. We didn’t get any clues from her but we stayed on the bus and kept our eyes peeled for landmarks that we recognized…

…and an HOUR later we concluded that we are definitely NOT in the right place and we should probably figure out how to get back. It’s funny how traveling with other people changes your behavior. If it had been me alone I would have been asking questions the second that I suspected something was amiss, but since we were together we both assumed that the other person had everything under control and we reacted alot slower than I think we ordinarily would have. We asked the money changer again and she advised us where to get off and which bus to take back home. (It was already dark and too late to try to go to CAASAH.) When I got home I asked Conchita where we should have caught the bus and it turns out that for the first time the Coconut man led me astray. I was utterly distraught by this realization because I had put so much faith in the Coconut guys.

Tuesday morning started at 5:15AM and I caught the bus at 6:30AM without a problem. My stop is the last one so normally everyone gets off the bus at the end of the line and you can’t miss it. Unfortunately I caught the bus at a different stop and my stop was not the last one and I sat reading an article and missed my stop, returned all the way to Campo Grande, and had to catch another bus. (The buses change routes so I couldn’t stay on the one I was on.) I ended up being 20 minutes late to class but I befriended the money changer on the bus and talked to him while we sat in traffic.

After class I went to talk to Isabel, the professor who can supposedly help me get into contact with Dr. Barreto for my research. I went to the Social Services office and talked to the secretary but it turns out that she only comes in on Mondays now. Until next week…

I went to CIEE to talk to Flavia and apologize for not showing up to volunteer at CAASAH. We rescheduled for today at 3:00PM and I ran a few more errands before my Portuguese class. I decided to go to UFBA early to see if I could catch Dr. Barreto before his class in the Pharmacy school. When I was there last week I saw that he teaches an Epidemiology class on Tuesdays from 3-4 and I thought that at last I might tag him down. Great idea but it turns out the class isn’t at 3:00PM its at 13:00 AND it isn’t at the Ondina UFBA campus its at the Institute for Collective Health. Fabulous. I spent the extra hour before my Portuguese class trying to read in the library but its already turning so hot here that with the heat and my exhaustion it took me the entire hour to get through the 6 page article for my Social Services class.

I had a long debate with myself on the way home about whether or not I wanted to go to capoeira and in the end I opted out because of my cold and my bruised heel from falling Saturday. I took some time to unwind and listen to music, then finished up my paper for Class and Race that was due today.

This morning I scoped out the bus stop we should have waited at for Ribeira and went to class. Afterwards Katie and I ate a quick lunch with a big group of students from the program and went straight to CAASAH. We caught the bus next to CIEE and we were able to see exactly where the stop is by Campo Grande when it passed by. When we got to CAASAH we met with Sandra and filled out some forms. Afterwards she introduced us to one of the coordinators and set us loose to play with the children. Oh goodness! During the interview/form signing with Sandra two of the girls came up to us and asked in English “My is your name?” One of the girls, Michelle, gave us each a kiss and told us “ben-vindo” or welcome. There was hardly a minute that I was there without someone in my arms or on my back. I got to see the babies today and they were infinitely precious. Two are itsy bitsy infants, two are a between 6-9 months old, and one is about 1-1.5. The 4 youngest ones were sleeping but I spend about half an hour with the 1-1.5 year old letting her craw around and practice standing. I spent quite a bit of time with another girl who wouldn’t tell me her age (I’d guess 5ish) whose name I couldn’t understand. She spoke very little but she clung to me from the moment she saw me. (It amazed me how I went in there nervous that I had nothing to offer and it turned out that all I needed were two arms to hold them, enough energy for a few piggy back rides, and kisses.) Her skin was covered in scars and she still wears diapers. Her belly-button is abnormally large, though I don’t know why that would be. We stayed for about an hour and half then headed back because I had at 5:30 class. We had no trouble on the return trip and arrived at Campo Grande at 4:00. I used the spare time to try to find the Institute of Collective Health which took be about an hour of running in circles. It’s hard to ask people on the streets because the locations move so often and there are several departments with similar names. I found Dr. Barreto’s office and talked to his secretary who told me that he would be traveling until August 31^st. Perhaps that is why he hasn’t responded to my e-mail. Let’s hope that I hear something soon.

I went straight from my quest to find Dr. Barreto to my Anemia class. When I got there I found out that there are some issues because of the strike at UFBA and we may not get the funding that we need to go to the community where we will be working. We discussed our options and ended class early today. They are trying to recruit students from other departments so that they can pool funds. Keep your fingers crossed.

I was short 40 cents for the bus ride home so I had to find a bank to get some cash from the ATM. That was a little bit sketchy because it was already dark outside and the campus was deserted, but mission successful!

Beijos!