Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I thought I'd share this video to give you an idea of the unconventionality of my Thanksgiving experience. It was bizarre to say the least. (Imagine night club music, an assortment of traditional American and Brazilian dishes, and cheesy decorations.)
I was supposed to have a presentation during my 7:OO AM Health seminar, but protesters barricaded the entrance to the university so class was canceled.
My Spanish professor decided that it would be the last day of class and between winks told us that we could come because technically there is still class, but that the students have collectively decided not to... She also canceled the final exam.
In the afternoon I had to give my final Portuguese presentation in front of all 4 classes. We sat through 4.5 hours of presentations before we were liberated to go have our Thanksgiving dinner. I made my Grandma's cornbread stuffing and it was a huge hit. Everyone complemented it so props to Mom for getting me the recipe. Tell Grandma that it was a success!
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Updates from the last time I posted are coming, but I want to write about a few recent events now why they are still fresh in my head.
CAASAH-SHOT AND BITTEN
Monday got off to a bit of a rough start because I had been up late working on a paper the night before and I was so occupied finishing it that morning, that I didn’t remember about my 8:50 class until 8:40. (opps!) Somehow I cut the 40 minute walk in half and got there at 9:05 without much damage. (It was my Spanish class which generally starts 10-15 minutes late anyway.) Then
after lunch I went to CAASAH, where I do my volunteer work with kids with HIV. The past few weeks I’ve seen a lot of improvements in the conditions there, but Monday was less than a positive experience. I was playing Frisbee with some kids in the playground when two of the boys got into a fight. Erique threw a rock at Mateos who responded by grabbing a huge chunk of concrete. It was easy to see where that was going so I intervened. Somewhere in the process of prying the concrete chunk from his hand and restraining him I got bit first timidly on the wrist, then forcefully on my thigh. I was alarmed at first because my thigh throbbed a good bit and I knew that if he broke the skin and had any sort of infection in his mouth, there was a chance that the virus could be transferred. I shrugged it off, thinking that there wasn’t much chance that he would have broken the skin through my jeans. After giving him a good talking to about the inappropriateness of his behavior, I moved to the baby room to cool down a bit. While I was holding one of the babies João, who I normally consider to be well-behaved, came in and started spraying water from the hose in the diaper changing room. He turns and shoots me point blank in the crotch and side. When I got home Conchita just stared at me standing in the doorway with the front of pants still soaked. It turned out to be an amusing story in retrospect, but at the time it was a bit defeating. I took a look at the bite and sprayed it with an antiseptic when I got home. Though it was swollen and red, the spray didn’t even sting so that assured me that the skin wasn’t broken. What little squirts…
(P.S. I'm not trying to show-off my leg in this picture, but I couldn't get the bite to get into focus any other way.)
PEDRA GRANDE- BLOOD AND FECES COLLECTIONS
Yesterday I went back with my class to the community, Pedra Grande, where I am doing the project from my honor’s thesis. It was a national holiday so all classes were cancelled and we took advantage of the free day… ALL of the free day in fact. (I left at 6:00AM and didn’t get back home until 10:00PM.) We learned that there is a back road that we can take to reach the community, which was great news because otherwise we would have had to carry across all our supplies across that log bridge. We had requested the health department to bring 4 chairs and 2 tables for us to use, but it turned out that the health department only brought one school desk and we had to scrounge up another table and some chairs from the community. It was a challenging request because many of the houses don’t have any furniture, but one lady offered her new kitchen table and several of the kids ran home and brought us a stool 
or a lawn chair. We set up a tent for the blood collections and used the big table to organize our supplies. We had 1 person recording the persons name and age and assigning an identification number (we labeled all the tubes and slides by an identification number and initials), 2 people preparing the supplies, 3 people drawing blood, 1-2 people attending to the patient after the collection (applying the bandaid, giving candy to the kids), 2 people making and labeling the slides (after the collection we put a drop of blood on each slide and extended it by running another slide at 45 degree angle along its entire length), 1-2 people organizing the people waiting, and 2 people collecting the feces. It took us about 4-4.5 hours to finish the collections and at the end of the day we had samples from 137 of 156 members of the community.
I did a bit of everything. One minute I was collecting blood, then distracting all the kids hovering around a screaming baby by taking their pictures with my digital camera, then making a slide or homogenizing the blood sample. We had to work fluidly because we were in a wide open environment where there isn’t the physical infrastructure to be able to separate those waiting their turn, those in the collection, and those who have already collected. Kids hovered around their friend during the collection, nervous little ones watched the process in horror, and kids climbed trees and ran around with the collection tube in hand. All and all, we came out well. When we got back to the lab in 
rst organized all the samples sequentially, then started running the tubes through an automated machine that screens for basic indicators of malnutrition and disease. After analyzing the results we identified the individuals whose slides we needed to examine, and tinted those slides. We finished around 9:30 PM and refrigerated all the samples neatly organized and labeled. Next week we are going to come in to look at the slides and exam the feces samples.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Saturday, November 3, 2007
On October 20 I went with my Anemia class to a small community called Pedra Grande in the Interior. The driver picked us up at 6AM and we spent three hours in route, plus a half hour break to eat breakfast.
To reach the community we had to literally pull off the road in the middle of nowhere, walk about 20 minutes through the brush, and cross a river by way of a narrow tree trunk. We never would have found the place if we hadn’t first picked up a representative of the health department from a town nearby.
To reach the community we had to literally pull off the road in the middle of nowhere, walk about 20 minutes through the brush, and cross a river by way of a narrow tree trunk. We never would have found the place if we hadn’t first picked up a representative of the health department from a town nearby. The community is a quilobolo, or a hide-away community founded by runaway slaves. It was immediately obvious upon arrival that we were dealing with an extremely impoverished and isolated population. The houses were made of mud bricks and sticks, the children ran around barefoot with dirty, bloated bodies and chickens roamed freely from the brush to the kitchen.
In teams of two we did house visits and administered our questionnaires that inquired about basic sanitation, dietary habits, and if anyone in the household showed symptoms of anemia.
After we finished the house visits we gathered everyone together and explained the project that we wanted to do. We are returning next Friday to take blood
and feces samples, in subsequent visits we will do educational activities/games that address what we deem to be the principal health problems of the community, and in the final visit we will have a health fair with 2 doctors and representatives from the health department.
I’ve officially decided to abandon my research attempts with the 
ulane. I want to study the link between intestinal worms and anemia in Pedra Grande and discuss the social-historic conditions of the community that makes it susceptible to this type of anemia.
I’ve also learned how to draw blood. Within class we’ve practiced on each other and I was the first to try. Since then, I worked one morning in the lab and got 2 hours of practice!
Friday, November 2, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
I am well overdue for an update. Sorry for the negligence. My dad mailed my charger about three weeks ago, but there was a strike in the postal services and it still hasn't arrived. Since I last wrote:
-I met with Barreto (on September 19th) and talked to him about my hopes to collaborate on a research project or collect my own data independently (but with his guidance) over either HIV or TB Salvador. He didn't make the conversation easy for me, but in the end he put me in contact with the director of a TB research project and gave me a copy of the proposal to read over. (I suppose that I was expecting him to be dazzled by my persistence and shower me with provocative ideas and encouragement. Instead he indirectly pointed out my lack of experience and direction, which was fair, but a girl's got to start somewhere. I'm in Brazil now and trained or not, I want to try to do and see what I can. ) The following Monday I met Susan, the project director, and we decided that it would be most beneficial for me to work on the questionnaires and interviews. She e-mailed me a copy of the questionnaires (but I never received them) and put me on the mailing list for Public Health seminars and announcements for the institute. On October 5 I went to a seminar on child consumption of medication and talked to Barreto afterward. I let him know that I never received the questionnaires and he explained to me that Susan hurt her ankle and has been out of the office. He introduced me to some other members of the team and had them re-send the questionnaires. Wednesday of last week I went to a meeting where the questionnaires were edited and finalized. I don't know when we will actually begin to administer them, but I think I've finally made myself inside the loop.
-Capoeira is going well. I've started going 3-4 times a week and I'm actually enjoying it now. When I go on Mondays or Wednesdays I see other students from my program and that helps me feel less incompetent. A huge group of students from California started about 3 weeks ago and they make me look like a pro, but I'm trying not to let it get to my head. ;o)
-Everything with CAASAH (the home I go to for carriers of HIV) is fine. I've bought 3 pairs of tennis shoes over the past month, which was probably a bad idea but when I see a little kid running around with gashes on their feet or NOT running around BECAUSE they have gashes on their feet, I tend to forget that if you give one child a pair of shoes there will be 27 others in line behind him with their precious little hands outstretched and pouty lips. I am bothered by the lack of sanitation and discipline, so I'm going to sit down with the director next Monday. I've already spoken to Flavia, an advisor at CIEE, because I want to know if the children don't have soap, shoes, or bathrooms accessible due to lack or resources or because of negligence. If it is resources, Brianne and I have been discussing some ways to raise money. Brianne is from Kansas City and as part of her study abroad scholarship is required to do a community project when she gets back incorporating elements of Brazilian culture. She is planning on putting on a Brazilian cultural fair for children in April (possibly annually) and she said she would be willing to set aside some of the funding for an institution like CAASAH. I'm not convinced that that sort of sponsorship is necessarily the best course of action, but it's at least one idea. I'd like to learn more about how exactly CAASAH is funded and managed, and perhaps some of the concepts from the social service class will help me to identify what the issue actually is and if there is a self-sustainable solution. Other CAASAH observations:
*Two weeks ago while I was there one of the nurses was literally throwing the children around and hitting them with a tree branch.
*My soccer ball was lost, but I've been bringing the Frisbee and it's been a huge hit.
*CIEE put on an event at CAASAH on September 21 with about 12 stations with different activities and prizes. At the end we hand out snacks and it really shook me to see 5-9 year old kids carefully wrapping up the packages of cookies and crackers and hiding them in their respective hiding places (behind a bush, on top of a cabinet, in a crack in the wall) so that they could have something to bring with them to school the next week.
-On September 23rd I went to Praia do Flamengo to have lunch and go to the beach with my art teacher's daughter, Julia. Julia is studying law at Catolica and speaks English impressively well for never having been to the US. I went with Kristina and Bethany by bus, which took about 1.5 hours. When I got with the gates of their condominium I felt like I had stepped into suburban America. The houses had little yards and gardens and everyone had a car parked out front. (My teacher is clearly well off.) We walked to the beach behind the condo and laid out/talked until lunch time. Julia's mom made feijão (a bean dish) and fresh salad. After lunch we watched some of the soccer game and caught a ride back to Garcia with Julia's aunt and uncle. It's a good thing that we didn't take a bus because traffic was terrible and the buses were all jammed with people coming back from the beaches after a long day of sun and beer. Bethany and her boyfriend are staying at a condo owned by Julia's uncle right now and I'm planning on meeting up with them there tomorrow morning with Michelle.
-On September 26 I went to a theater performance with CIEE called A Geladeira (the refrigerator) at Teatro Vila Velha. We walked into the theater to find the audience seats lining the perimeter of the stage. Clothing was hanging from hangers on the ceiling and thrown about on the floor. A bald man, barefoot and wearing a purple cotton dress, walked around the stage carrying a stereo playing music. It was a bit of an absurd performance and I had trouble identifying what the message of the writer was, so I won't spend anymore time writing about it. We went to dinner afterwards, which made up for the theater.
-On September 29th I went with Brianne, Maggie, and Bethany to Jacuípe. It took us 3 hours to get there, but it is my favorite beach so far (except for Rio of course). We were right where the Jacuípe River meets the ocean. We entertained ourselves by swimming upstream, then floating down the current and watching the jet skis. It was fairly unpopulated, had few vendors, and was clean- all welcome changes. For safety reasons we stayed near a bar, because Bri and Maggie are both blonde and got robbed the weekend before.
-On October 4 I saw Seu Jorge in concert! It was amazing. I was front row, precisely in the center and I only paid $20 for the tickets. Seu Jorge is one of my favorite artists from Brazil and I almost peed my pants when I found out he was coming. The concert surprised me a bit because I had him pegged as the stoic- classy type, but oh no, this was a show. His 5-6 year old daughter came on stage to introduce him and all his instrumentalists and backup singers came on dressed up as different kinds of workers (i.e. a street cleaner, a security guard, a doct
or, a butcher, a farmer, etc.) Seu Jorge came on as a police officer and danced without reservation. He sang a lot of songs from his new album (which I bought after the concert for $5) and about 4 from the album that I have. At the end of the concert the audience went crazy and demanded an encore. We pushed up against the stage and I could have literally reached out and touched him. My favorite part was when we picked up one of the apples used as a prop and ate in the middle of one of the songs during the encore. A man after my own heart...
-Last Friday was a national holiday and also Dia das Crianças (children's day). I went out with Isa, Luciana, and Conchita to Parque Pituaçu to see a concert in the park but it turned out we went to the wrong park, so after walking around a bit we went over to Parque da Cidade just in time to see the Bahian orquestra play. It was a beautiful day and children were EVERYWHERE. Children's day is like a mini Christmas and all the kids get presents/candy/etc. We went to lunch at a Bahian restaurant where I ate too much, but enjoyed myself thoroughly. It was the first time that I had been out with all 3 of them at the same time.
Okay, I will stop there because I know I've already tested your endurance and patience writing this much. Please drop me a line and let me know how things are. I've been so disconnected the last month and half since my computer went out.
-I met with Barreto (on September 19th) and talked to him about my hopes to collaborate on a research project or collect my own data independently (but with his guidance) over either HIV or TB Salvador. He didn't make the conversation easy for me, but in the end he put me in contact with the director of a TB research project and gave me a copy of the proposal to read over. (I suppose that I was expecting him to be dazzled by my persistence and shower me with provocative ideas and encouragement. Instead he indirectly pointed out my lack of experience and direction, which was fair, but a girl's got to start somewhere. I'm in Brazil now and trained or not, I want to try to do and see what I can. ) The following Monday I met Susan, the project director, and we decided that it would be most beneficial for me to work on the questionnaires and interviews. She e-mailed me a copy of the questionnaires (but I never received them) and put me on the mailing list for Public Health seminars and announcements for the institute. On October 5 I went to a seminar on child consumption of medication and talked to Barreto afterward. I let him know that I never received the questionnaires and he explained to me that Susan hurt her ankle and has been out of the office. He introduced me to some other members of the team and had them re-send the questionnaires. Wednesday of last week I went to a meeting where the questionnaires were edited and finalized. I don't know when we will actually begin to administer them, but I think I've finally made myself inside the loop.
-Capoeira is going well. I've started going 3-4 times a week and I'm actually enjoying it now. When I go on Mondays or Wednesdays I see other students from my program and that helps me feel less incompetent. A huge group of students from California started about 3 weeks ago and they make me look like a pro, but I'm trying not to let it get to my head. ;o)
-Everything with CAASAH (the home I go to for carriers of HIV) is fine. I've bought 3 pairs of tennis shoes over the past month, which was probably a bad idea but when I see a little kid running around with gashes on their feet or NOT running around BECAUSE they have gashes on their feet, I tend to forget that if you give one child a pair of shoes there will be 27 others in line behind him with their precious little hands outstretched and pouty lips. I am bothered by the lack of sanitation and discipline, so I'm going to sit down with the director next Monday. I've already spoken to Flavia, an advisor at CIEE, because I want to know if the children don't have soap, shoes, or bathrooms accessible due to lack or resources or because of negligence. If it is resources, Brianne and I have been discussing some ways to raise money. Brianne is from Kansas City and as part of her study abroad scholarship is required to do a community project when she gets back incorporating elements of Brazilian culture. She is planning on putting on a Brazilian cultural fair for children in April (possibly annually) and she said she would be willing to set aside some of the funding for an institution like CAASAH. I'm not convinced that that sort of sponsorship is necessarily the best course of action, but it's at least one idea. I'd like to learn more about how exactly CAASAH is funded and managed, and perhaps some of the concepts from the social service class will help me to identify what the issue actually is and if there is a self-sustainable solution. Other CAASAH observations:
*Two weeks ago while I was there one of the nurses was literally throwing the children around and hitting them with a tree branch.
*My soccer ball was lost, but I've been bringing the Frisbee and it's been a huge hit.
*CIEE put on an event at CAASAH on September 21 with about 12 stations with different activities and prizes. At the end we hand out snacks and it really shook me to see 5-9 year old kids carefully wrapping up the packages of cookies and crackers and hiding them in their respective hiding places (behind a bush, on top of a cabinet, in a crack in the wall) so that they could have something to bring with them to school the next week.
-On September 23rd I went to Praia do Flamengo to have lunch and go to the beach with my art teacher's daughter, Julia. Julia is studying law at Catolica and speaks English impressively well for never having been to the US. I went with Kristina and Bethany by bus, which took about 1.5 hours. When I got with the gates of their condominium I felt like I had stepped into suburban America. The houses had little yards and gardens and everyone had a car parked out front. (My teacher is clearly well off.) We walked to the beach behind the condo and laid out/talked until lunch time. Julia's mom made feijão (a bean dish) and fresh salad. After lunch we watched some of the soccer game and caught a ride back to Garcia with Julia's aunt and uncle. It's a good thing that we didn't take a bus because traffic was terrible and the buses were all jammed with people coming back from the beaches after a long day of sun and beer. Bethany and her boyfriend are staying at a condo owned by Julia's uncle right now and I'm planning on meeting up with them there tomorrow morning with Michelle.
-On September 26 I went to a theater performance with CIEE called A Geladeira (the refrigerator) at Teatro Vila Velha. We walked into the theater to find the audience seats lining the perimeter of the stage. Clothing was hanging from hangers on the ceiling and thrown about on the floor. A bald man, barefoot and wearing a purple cotton dress, walked around the stage carrying a stereo playing music. It was a bit of an absurd performance and I had trouble identifying what the message of the writer was, so I won't spend anymore time writing about it. We went to dinner afterwards, which made up for the theater.-On September 29th I went with Brianne, Maggie, and Bethany to Jacuípe. It took us 3 hours to get there, but it is my favorite beach so far (except for Rio of course). We were right where the Jacuípe River meets the ocean. We entertained ourselves by swimming upstream, then floating down the current and watching the jet skis. It was fairly unpopulated, had few vendors, and was clean- all welcome changes. For safety reasons we stayed near a bar, because Bri and Maggie are both blonde and got robbed the weekend before.
-On October 4 I saw Seu Jorge in concert! It was amazing. I was front row, precisely in the center and I only paid $20 for the tickets. Seu Jorge is one of my favorite artists from Brazil and I almost peed my pants when I found out he was coming. The concert surprised me a bit because I had him pegged as the stoic- classy type, but oh no, this was a show. His 5-6 year old daughter came on stage to introduce him and all his instrumentalists and backup singers came on dressed up as different kinds of workers (i.e. a street cleaner, a security guard, a doct
or, a butcher, a farmer, etc.) Seu Jorge came on as a police officer and danced without reservation. He sang a lot of songs from his new album (which I bought after the concert for $5) and about 4 from the album that I have. At the end of the concert the audience went crazy and demanded an encore. We pushed up against the stage and I could have literally reached out and touched him. My favorite part was when we picked up one of the apples used as a prop and ate in the middle of one of the songs during the encore. A man after my own heart...-Last Friday was a national holiday and also Dia das Crianças (children's day). I went out with Isa, Luciana, and Conchita to Parque Pituaçu to see a concert in the park but it turned out we went to the wrong park, so after walking around a bit we went over to Parque da Cidade just in time to see the Bahian orquestra play. It was a beautiful day and children were EVERYWHERE. Children's day is like a mini Christmas and all the kids get presents/candy/etc. We went to lunch at a Bahian restaurant where I ate too much, but enjoyed myself thoroughly. It was the first time that I had been out with all 3 of them at the same time.
Okay, I will stop there because I know I've already tested your endurance and patience writing this much. Please drop me a line and let me know how things are. I've been so disconnected the last month and half since my computer went out.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Hello my lovelys...
The story with my laptop is that my charger is burned out and my Dad is having a new one mailed to me. I think it will be another 2-3 weeks before I'm back in business. To buy one here would cost R$420...
So much has happened in the past few weeks. I had a wonderful weekend in Morro de São Paulo the weekend before last. I went with Baird, Nora, and Bethany (all three of which puked on the boat ride... at one point I was sitting between Bethany and Baird, rubbing their backs while they both heaved... somehow I held it down... I think the only other people on the boat not vomiting were the drunk men and the crew.)
We stayed at a beautiful hostel with a hammock and tons of beautiful birds and plants. On Friday we visited the beaches and Saturday we took a clay-mud bath and washed it off in the ocean. I went back with Bethany Saturday night because I wanted to attend the Health Conference that started Sunday. (We drugged Bethany up for the ride back and it went fine.)
Saturday night I stayed up until about 3 AM writing my paper for Raça e Classe, then went to the conference Sunday afternoon and skipped classes to attend Monday as well. It was an incredible experience and gave me an overview of the current controversial issues in public health in Bahia.
Last weekend I went to Lençóis with Bethany, Breanne, Kristina, and Maggie. We took an overnight bus ride Thursday night and I came back Sunday night with Kristina. Lençóis is a community in the interior with tons of natural waterfalls, caves, rivers, mountains, etc. Friday we hiked a 9 mile trail up and down a mountain with the 2nd biggest waterfall in South America. Saturday we snorkled in a cave and visited several caves and waterfalls. Sunday we hiked several trails and slid down a rock slide into a lake. It was amazing! I'll post pictures when I get my laptop running.
I'm meeting with Barreto this afternoon. I went by his office again last week with no luck, but I talked to his secretary and she told me to e-mail him again. I did so and marked the e-mail as HIGH PRIORITY... and he responded. :o) At last! Wish me luck...
The story with my laptop is that my charger is burned out and my Dad is having a new one mailed to me. I think it will be another 2-3 weeks before I'm back in business. To buy one here would cost R$420...
So much has happened in the past few weeks. I had a wonderful weekend in Morro de São Paulo the weekend before last. I went with Baird, Nora, and Bethany (all three of which puked on the boat ride... at one point I was sitting between Bethany and Baird, rubbing their backs while they both heaved... somehow I held it down... I think the only other people on the boat not vomiting were the drunk men and the crew.)We stayed at a beautiful hostel with a hammock and tons of beautiful birds and plants. On Friday we visited the beaches and Saturday we took a clay-mud bath and washed it off in the ocean. I went back with Bethany Saturday night because I wanted to attend the Health Conference that started Sunday. (We drugged Bethany up for the ride back and it went fine.)
Saturday night I stayed up until about 3 AM writing my paper for Raça e Classe, then went to the conference Sunday afternoon and skipped classes to attend Monday as well. It was an incredible experience and gave me an overview of the current controversial issues in public health in Bahia.
Last weekend I went to Lençóis with Bethany, Breanne, Kristina, and Maggie. We took an overnight bus ride Thursday night and I came back Sunday night with Kristina. Lençóis is a community in the interior with tons of natural waterfalls, caves, rivers, mountains, etc. Friday we hiked a 9 mile trail up and down a mountain with the 2nd biggest waterfall in South America. Saturday we snorkled in a cave and visited several caves and waterfalls. Sunday we hiked several trails and slid down a rock slide into a lake. It was amazing! I'll post pictures when I get my laptop running.
I'm meeting with Barreto this afternoon. I went by his office again last week with no luck, but I talked to his secretary and she told me to e-mail him again. I did so and marked the e-mail as HIGH PRIORITY... and he responded. :o) At last! Wish me luck...
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