O Fim

Back to where it all began: my kitchen table

Since my last post, I have completed all of my research, edited and finished my research paper, presented on said research, passed a Portuguese proficiency exam, visited two more beautiful beaches, and made it back to the USA all in one piece. 

Although my last ten days can be summed up in one run-on sentence, they were surely a wild (and very busy) ride. My last week in Ilhéus was spent translating interviews, finishing my research paper and catching as many balcony/hammock sunsets as possible. Although editing 45 pages of qualitative writing isn't exactly my favorite activity, printing the final copy was unbelievably rewarding. 

back balcony sunset 

a little front balcony action too 

And there is no better way to celebrate the end of the research project than to go to the beach! So, for our last weekend in Ilhéus, I went to Itacaré with my housemates to soak up some more sun and relax before our presentations and proficiency exams. This beautiful beach town is famous for its surfing and relaxed vibe which was an absolutely perfect way to de-stress. Many travelers that we met over the weekend had planned a weekend trip similar to ours, and months later had yet to leave. 

Our favorite beach in Itacaré

After our weekend getaway and printing our final copies (explaining how to print double-sided in a spiral bound notebook in portuguese turned out to be the ultimate test in language ability), we headed back to the nunnery in Salvador for the last week of the program. Since first staying at the nunnery in September, there was a significant increase in nativity scenes, Christmas lights, and Jesus action. Safe to say I got the full Christmas-in-Brazil experience in one lap around the garden. 

Our last week was jam-packed with presentations, re-entry discussions, and trips to the beach during every ounce of free time. 

Four months ago, I sat in this same seat, trying to learn elementary portuguese and convincing myself that Brazil would become like a second home to me. Today, I am not only a bronzed goddess, but I am also almost conversational (almost being the key word) in portuguese, and eagerly awaiting my next trip to Bahía. 

Holidays with a Side of Rain

This week, Ilhéus received over 10% of the rain it usually receives in one year AND IT IS NOT EVEN RAINY SEASON YET. From Tuesday night until Friday afternoon, we had non-stop water falling from the sky. Most of the time, it was torrential down pour with crazy gusts of wind, but sometimes, we would be lucky enough to catch a break and the rain would slow to the usual amount that might require the middle setting of wind shield wipers in a car. 

Apparently, when our house was built, such rain was not a concern as the only draining pipe on our front balcony is conveniently placed right next to the doors that lead into our house. So, while half of the water was draining onto our steps/neighbor's lawn, the other half was trickling into our living room. After making some creative blockades out of towels (not the most effective blocking device), we finally found a squeegee and spent the next hour perfecting the art of aiming water down the drain instead of into the house. 

the storm in action 

Since the rain leakage issue wasn't enough, we decided to add to our list of water problems, and broke one of the main pipes in our house. This meant that we couldn't wash dishes for a while (a break from dishes sounds nice but got ugly VERY quickly, especially with our open air/lots of bugs house). In order to get the pipe fixed, we had to learn some new plumbing themed vocabulary, and as soon as the pipe was working again, all of the water in our house shut off. After a solid five days of water games, everything is pretty much back to normal, accept when the sink fell off into my hand today. 

Amidst all of the water madness, we also celebrated Thanksgiving! We had an incredible feast that included coconut and cilantro barbora (brazilian squash/pumpkin), green beans, potato latkes, lamb, pumpkin pie, and apple crisp. This was not exactly the typical Thanksgiving meal, but I insisted on the latkes, and finding turkey in this country is not exactly easy. 

Along with Thanksgiving, I have been attempting Hanukkah. The latkes were a good start, but it is very hard to have hanukkah without a menorah. In order to fix this issue, I tried making one out of an empty milk carton and painters tape, but it isn't really doing the trick. 

In other news...

I have finished all of my field work, and have started writing my final research project. I am still in the translating-all-of-my-interviews phase, and hope to start my results section soon. We have one more week left here in Ilhéus before we head back to Salvador for the last week of the program and all of our presentations. I should probably stop procrastinating with this blog post and get back to my paper now. 

ISP Living

After our first full week of living in Ilhéus, it is certainly starting to feel like home. This week was filled with lots of research, exploring, and of course, cooking. 

On Monday, we all began our ISPs (the research project that we have been preparing for since landing in Brazil). As I am conducting a project on the communication within the public health system, I spent my first week of field research interviewing many different health professionals including nurses, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, community health agents, and social workers. So far, it has been incredibly interesting to get so may different perspectives on the complexities and flaws of Brazil's public health care system. 

All this research has also come with its fair share of hilarious experiences. The best so far happened after speaking with a community health agent in a favela clinic. I stayed after the interview to organize my notes and wait to meet with my advisor, but because I was sitting in an examination room and wearing somewhat professional attire, I was confused for a doctor. A woman came rushing into the room with her sick child and pushed her child toward me asking what was wrong with her. I immediately started laughing (definitely the wrong response for a worried mother), and then tried to explain that I was a student doing research. She then assumed I was a medical student and was clearly frustrated by my lack of knowledge about her daughter's illness. 

the policlínica (one of my research locations)

Most days after researching/interviewing in the morning, we come home for lunch, and then usually get kidnapped by one of our advisors to go exploring for the afternoon. Before our advisors see patients at the local clinics, they drop us off at the nearest beach, and pick us up when they are done with the appointments. Sometimes, I feel like a child being taken to my parent's work everyday, but free transportation to and from the beach is VERY hard to turn down. 

beach in Olivença (one of our advisors works at a clinic 5 minutes away) 

In terms of learning how to be a grown up, we are certainly learning. Remember how we broke the sink? We now know how to fix it (and have broken/fixed it three times since the original instance).As for the issue with laundry smelling worse after it has been washed, we have finally learned that the machine must be attached to a sink that is turned on because water is indeed necessary to clean clothes. We have continued to master the art of grocery shopping, and have been taking full advantage of being able to cook all of our meals. We still do not know how to use the oven, but are hoping to figure it out before Thanksgiving! 

salad with fresh mango, avocado, tomatoes, cilantro, and chili marinated chicken

Playing House

SOMEHOW in the past week, I have become a real person.

I am currently living in an apartment with three other friends, we are shopping for and making all of our own food, doing laundry, cleaning, and pretty much pretending real adults. All of this is taking place in Ilhéus, a beautiful and safe city with a plentiful collection of gorgeous beaches and serious public health issues. Doesn't get much better than that!

This week, I will be starting my field research at various medical and mental health clinics around the city. My advisor is a nurse at the free clinic in the favela where I will be doing most of my interviews. Most of our advisors have some kind of involvement with this clinic and the public health system, and have also taken a serious liking to toting us around the city. 

Andrea (another advisor) has pretty much taken us on as her second children and has now kidnapped us for unannounced driving tours of the city and beaches, to her house for snack time, and to the grocery store to teach us how to buy bread and produce. Just for the record, we already new how to go grocery shopping and have been to the grocery store every day since moving in. We're trying to become regulars. 

Our house here in Ilhéus is perfect (with the exception of the army of mosquitos). We have two porches, beautiful views, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and running water. We also have lots of geckos (we started naming them, but it's getting confusing because five of them look the same), friendly neighbors with the loudest dog in Brazil, and arguably the best sunset spot in the city. 

jack jack (one of our pet geckos) who lives on the ceiling of the living room and eats large moths

the view from our back balcony 

our front balcony, complete with two hammocks and the perfect dinner location

So far we have broken the sink once, taken laundry out of the machine smelling worse than when we put it in, lost a spatula behind the gas stove (don't worry we found it after crawling around on the floor for a while), and mastered the art of making salsa out of whatever fruits and vegetables were cheapest at the store. Pretty successful for our first week being real grownups in a foreign country!

mango salsa

our living room 

our kitchen

Remanso

After playing tourist in Lençòis for the weekend, we traveled further into the Interior of Bahia to do a rural village study. For about a week, my program was folded into the quilombo of Remanso (quilombo means runaway slave community). The community is about 80 families and completely secluded from the outside world, with the exception of occasional trips to Lençòis. Each family that lives in the community has ties back to the original slave founders, and, at this point, a large majority of the community is somehow related. The quilombos in Brazil are all protected by the federal government, and within the past 10 years, the government has started to provide water wells and electricity. 

During our time in Remanso, we got a serious taste for rural living. With no running water, simple tasks like brushing teeth became a larger ordeal. Instead of taking showers, we took buckets (taking bucket showers is actually very fun, I would recommend it), and we became close acquaintances with some very large insects. 

Enjoying our backyard hammock with my friend Nicole

My house 

My host mom in Remanso has 7 children (ranging from ages 22 to 4), and is incredibly strong in all ways. Her husband is currently suffering from throat cancer, and because of the lack of health care in the quilombo, he no longer lives in the house and travels for days every month to receive the care that he needs. This leaves my host mom at home to take care of all of the children on her own, and manage their agricultural business (conveniently located in their backyard) of harvesting aipim (cassava/route vegetable). 

Two of my host siblings (Jackson, 4, and Roberta, 7) with some VERY fresh fish

Throughout our time in the village, we pretty much did everything that our host families did, made art projects with the children in the local school, learned capoeira (kind of like zumba if you replace the dancing element with fighting), took a day long excursion down the river to a beautiful waterfall, and had some course discussions about social determinants of health. 

rowing down the river to the waterfall 

Lençòis Adventures

After two months of Salvador-living, our classroom became completely mobile as we took off for a two week excursion throughout the state of Bahia. To begin, we spent a weekend in Lençòis, a beautiful town nestled in Chapada Diamantina in the interior of Bahia. 

With only one completely free day to conquer one of the most popular tourist destinations in all of Brazil, 11 of us piled into a van with a guide to have an incredibly productive, beautiful, and memorable adventure. 

To begin, we took a short hike to this natural swimming hole in the mountains of Chapada Diamantina. 

After a break to swim, we hiked out and shipped off to our next destination: the natural pools

natural pool that was filled with over-friendly fish

cactus curtain 

inside the cave connected to the natural pool

After an hour of swimming, relaxing, and being nibbled on by fish, it was time for our next stop: a cave filled with stalagmites and stalagtites. We took a 45 minute tour of this series of caves filled with bats and incredible natural sculptures. To top it all off, we all got to wear hard hats and carry giant flash lights (the guides said it was for safety, but I think they just like to make tourists look stupid).

some stalagmites/tites

After our cave expedition, it was time for our last, and arguably most beautiful stop of the day. We went for a perfectly timed hike to watch the sun set over the Chapada Diamantina mountains. 

View from the summit with my friends Colin and Sarabeth

another incredible Brazilian sunset

Ilha De Mare

During our last week of class in Salvador, we went on a day long excursion to Ilha de Mare with local UFBA nursing and dental students (we had class at the same university so sometimes we would awkwardly interact with them). The Island is about a 40 minute boat ride off the coast of Salvador, and is also the home town of one of our academic directors. Our program was split into smaller groups, combined with the UFBA students, in different neighborhoods all over the island. We spent the day doing health promotion activities with school-aged children and their families.

The boats that we took to Ilha de Mare

On the island, my group worked with elementary schoolers on dental hygiene. After putting on a puppet show with tooth puppets, we did a fluoride demonstration that turned all of the kids' teeth neon pink. Apparently, the fluoride tasted awful because all of the kids winced and tried to scrape it off their tongues. 

the neon pink realization 

although the kids hated the fluoride, they were really into the camera

After spending the day playing with fluoride and children, we went to our academic director's neighborhood for a samba/farewell party. I think I drank my body's weight in coconut water, and almost learned how to samba (which is really just shuffling your feet as fast a possible). To finish our adventure, we caught a beautiful sunset on our way back to Salvador. 

sunset in Praia Grande (hometown of our academic director)

UFBA students and our group mid sunset 

Some More Beaches and Food

It seems like I don't do anything but go to the beach and eat... this week is no exception. On Sunday, I went to Praia do Forte with my host family. This small, beachy town is 2 hour drive along the coast from Salvador and has quite the collection of shops, restaurants, and wildlife. 

view from TAMAR (the turtle center)

I spent a majority of my time at Praia do Forte with my host cousin Luis (10), and my host brother Vini (28) wandering through the outdoor turtle center-aquarium-museum area, taking pictures in front of every turtle-related item. I think I may have miscommunicated about having aquariums in the US, and so my family thought that I had never seen one before, so they were REALLY into the pictures. I have never felt like such a tourist, but now I have quite the collection of awkward pictures of me posing with brazilian turtle paraphernalia. 

awkward picture 1: Me in a turtle 

awkward picture 2: Me and a turtle (we're making the same face, so this one is actually kind of cool)

awkward picture 3: me in a human sized turtle egg

my host cousin Luis is such a natural when it comes to egg pictures. 

 One quick thing slightly related academics before I get to the food (to prove that I actually work sometimes)... This week we visited a Maternidade (maternity hospital) that is part of the public health system. We toured a bunch of post-delivery rooms, the "kangaroo" room (where mothers have constant contact with their babies using those kangaroo sac things), and the hospital's breast milk bank. In the hour we spent walking around, I saw at least 20 babies fresh out of the womb (like really no more than a day or two old), and more breast milk than the average person sees in a lifetime. 

AND on to food. Highlights from Ciara's bakery this week included a bolo de milho (corn bread in the shape of a cake), chocolate and coconut crusted strawberries, and homemade sweet bread (the equivalent to Brazilian french toast). 

chocolate and coconut covered strawberries

sweet bread

I also managed to venture beyond the bakery for some special treats and went out for sushi with a couple friends this weekend. We feasted on incredibly fresh fish, and because we didn't quite understand or recognize most of the items on the menu, we were pleasantly surprised by our choices. Clearly, I am sticking with the beach and food theme. 

freshly made acai (and maybe blueberry) drink 

salmon and some other things (I really have no idea what this was called but it was incredible)

Cachoeira

This week, we spent five days in Cachoeira, a small town about 2 hours inland from Salvador. The suburbs of Cachoeira are rural areas with an occasional "town center" including a bar, maybe a gas station or a school, and a couple organized trees. All of our host families for this short stay reside in compounds with the rest of their family (I am pretty sure that everyone within a 5 mile radius is somehow related). My host family followed this set up and lives an incredibly simple life. Every time I returned for a meal, I would ask them what they did during the day and each time the response was "eh not much, maybe watch tv, relax and cook a little for you". Safe to say that I got a little stir crazy after the third novela on the first night.

My host family in Cachoeira (this was the only time I saw my host mom smile and I promise those kids usually were not miserable...)

the most luxurious mosquito net I will ever use

The main point of this Cachoeira excursion was to experience health care in a rural setting (which is pretty bad). My placement within the health care system was at the mental health clinic called CAPS. Originally, I was under the impression that this CAPS location was for mental illnesses like depression or schizophrenia, but, much to my surprise, this location is prime real estate for addiction. All of the patients had a slew of addictions, as well as an occasional mix of developmental disorders. Because CAPS does not require sobriety, a majority of the patients would come and go, using a collection of drugs as they pleased. On our first day with CAPS, we participated in an art therapy session, and also went on a field trip to a cigar factory with the woman who runs CAPS as well as all of the patients who participated in art therapy that morning (I couldn't make this stuff up). The second day, we participated in a group therapy session with about 10 patients. This therapy included a mirror exercise, a surprisingly heated argument on religion, and a couple of small fights among the patients. Safe to say my time at CAPS was a once in a lifetime kind of thing.

cigar factory

view from the bridge on the way to the cigar factory

Because I was not home for much of this week, there were only a few treats. This one is by far the funniest so far and was delivered to me while I was doing my homework this afternoon. Ciara said it was a leftover from one of the parties she catered this weekend which was appropriately princess themed. 

Morro De Sao Paulo

If anyone is ever looking for the perfect place to runaway/spend the rest of your life, it is Morro De Sao Paulo. This past weekend, four friends and I took a 2 hour catamaran to this beautiful island where there are tons of tropical fish, incredible views, beautiful beaches, and absolutely no cars. 

view from the top of the island during sunset

boat terminal 

some beach and tidal pool exploring 

We spent most of our time exploring from one beach to the next, making stops at an old fort, and some natural pools with lots of friendly fish. Because of the lack of cars, it is possible to walk everywhere on the island, which allowed for the five of us to wander wherever we wanted. This was a VERY nice break from the madness of Salvador where it is almost impossible to cross a street without dodging a motorcycle or two. 

exploring the historical fort (but really we just wanted to go swimming with fish)

and... finally found the fish! Schools swam right up to us!

If I don't stop talking about Morro De Sao Paulo now, I probably never will. SO, this seems like an appropriate time for the weekly baked goods update. According to Ciara (my host mom/professional baker/caterer), there is no way to say welcome home better than a fresh butterscotch-filled cupcake!

all you can see is frosting... but I swear the inside was filled with butterscotch

Usually, on my way back from class in the afternoon, I swing by the baking/catering hub (a short 30 feet from our apartment) to say hi. Each time I have done this, Ciara bundles me up with brigaderos (bite-sized chocolate treats) and cake. Really, absolutely nothing to complain about here!

brigaderos 

vanilla-coconut cake with chocolate flakes