Brasil - Estou Aqui!!!

(For those of you who think I misspelled the name of this post... you're wrong! hehe its in Portuguese)

Sunday we arrived in São Paulo at 7 in the morning... after a 10 and a half hour flight.  I only got about 1:30 hours of sleep... mostly because there was just so much to do (movies, tv, music, food, etc.) and so much to think about. But surprisingly I wasn't tired, my excitement was much much greater.  As soon as we got out of the terminal, we exchanged money (from dollars to reais) and were ready to begin our adventure!  The weather was beautiful 80 degrees and sunny.  We walked out of the airport and all we saw around us was trees, and more trees.

A bus took us from the airport to the hotel where we would be staying for the first night.  The hotel was gorgeous (see below)... It was in the center of the city with many shops and bars only walking distance away.  We got there around 8 or 9 in the morning and had a complimentary breakfast.  Breakfast included the typical eggs and bread/pastry assortment, but it also had almost one complete table full of just fruit (apples, bananas, pears, papaya, melon, grapes, you name it).  Then after breakfast came the most brutal part of our day... Orientation.  This only lasted about 2 or so hours but it was the longest 2 hours of my life.  By that point my tired/sleepiness began to sink in and it was just impossible to stay awake.  Luckily our guide realized that we all needed rest so she gave us the afternoon free to do as we pleased... and of course I went up to my room and slept.  After my slumber we decided to go out for dinner as a group.  We walked down Ave. Paulista (a major avenue in São Paulo) and found a little Japanese restaurant.  We thought oh a Japanese place... they must know some English right?  WRONG!  It was day one and none of us knew any Portuguese... so I started to whip out my Spanish along with various other hand motions and facial gestures.  And at the end of it all we were quite successful, we were able to order food and eat.

We then began heading back towards the hotel, ready to call it a night, when we meet up with Caio our language facilitator.  He was with some other students heading towards a bar and "convinced" us to go with him.  It is worth noting that during our orientation one of the things they talked to us about was drinking in moderation.  They also warned us about this one Brazilian drink called Caipirinhas (made with sugar cane rum)... and of course this was the first drink everybody ordered that night.  Its very sweet and because of this people usually cannot taste the alcohol in it so they typically drink more than they should.  But nothing bad happened to us, people were just curious and wanted to try it.  Here is what the drink looks like...

Monday was our first day of class!  We walked to our school, Santa Casa, and as soon as we arrived we were welcomed by a team of doctors and coordinators.  Santa Casa was originally part of a Catholic church reaching out to their community by offering free health care and other services.  Eventually it became affiliated with a hospital and then was turned into a medical school.  Santa Casa is known as one of the best medical schools in all of Brazil.  It is a private school with a lot of history. My favorite story about Santa Casa has to do with their wheel.  In the past, they used to have a revolving wheel passing from the outside to the inside of the building.  It was placed there for single mothers to leave their babies, either because they couldn't take care of them or because they were embarrassed of being single mothers.  The best part of this story is that after babies were dropped the nuns at Santa Casa would raise them and educate them to be doctors in order to give back to their community.  Amazing!

After school we headed back to the hotel to wait for our host families.  It was like waiting to be picked from a puppy litter at a pet store.  We would see one family come in and hope it was ours (pick me pick me)... but then they would walk towards other students, and we knew we had to wait some more.  Finally after 10 families or so ours came!  We were picked up by Rodrigo and Polly, our host brother and his gf.  They drove us to their apartment in the city and we were greeted by his parents Francisco and Francisca, his sister Carolina and her bf Gabriel.  Everyone was so excited to meet us!  We had dinner with them and the food was delicious (we didn't know it at the time but our host mom was the best cook in all of São Paulo!).  They then let us retreat to our room, and boy what a view!  We were smack dab in the center of downtown and only 4 blocks away from the school, what more could we have asked for! Lucky lucky us.

Tuesday, our second day of class we learned about the medical system here in Brazil.  Brazil has a program called SUS which provided universal access to health care free of charge to any people living in the country.  This means that anyone no mater what age, class, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, you name it, can have access to free health care ranging from general check-ups to liver transplants and everything in between.  We first heard from Monika who was a Polish immigrant.  She told us a story about her mother getting sick on Christmas Eve, she was visiting from Poland and all of a sudden she felt this strong pain in her chest.  They rushed her to a nearby public hospital and treated her without asking any questions.  All they needed to know was her name, no insurance plan information, no proof of citizenship or residency, nothing.  In Brazil health is viewed as a human right, and therefore all people are given access to it.  This law has been prevalent in Brazil since 1988, but was practiced even before then by specific states.  However the system is not perfect.  We ended class with a panel talking about the various aspects of SUS and some of the problems they have encountered. For example, many people complained about the quality of care and the long waiting time or the stigma of the care.  Since its free, most people think that these clinics or hospitals are only for poor people and that is certainly not the case.  Nonetheless, I think that Brazil is doing much better in terms of addressing public health than the US. Health is a very important part of human life, and without it one might not even have the chance to live it.

Wednesday was my favorite day so far.  We dedicated almost the entire day to visiting poorer neighborhoods in São Paulo (favelas).  My group was assigned to visit Cantinho do Ceu (translated to mean little piece of heaven).  Even though this was considered to be a favela it was the most beautiful place we have visited so far.  This town was located near a water reservoir, however this water was very unsanitary and polluted.  The city of São Paulo has used this reservoir as a dump by basically channeling all their wastes to this area.  Recently, however, the town has tried to fix the problem by moving people away from the waterfront and by cutting back on waste disposal here.  Locals continue to use this water for fishing and for harvesting, and even for recreational activities such as swimming.  Despite all of the sanitation issues and the marginal economic status of the people living there I fell in love with the place.  It was a small small town with tiny streets and little shops out of people's homes, but the feeling of community and family I felt from being there was fantastic.  These people would not let their poverty stop them from achieving their goals.  They worked together to build a child day care and a clinic, and they have also been actively involved in reducing violence and fighting.  It was a very empowering experience.