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| Here I am explaining to the children where they live and where I live. |
Today I returned to Santa Casa and was able to get a little bigger picture of just how this hospital operates. I spent the day with the Laboratory technicians because one of them is Sister Joana's niece. She studied bio-medicine in college and now has a position in the lab. I was able to watch the first few steps of running blood samples to match with a person who is in need of an organ. It was very nice and good to talk to the technicians as they worked. Also, one of them knows English and was very happy to have someone with whom to practice. The lab at Santa Casa was nice, but small and reminded me a little of the lab at my high school. After that, I finally had a full-fledged tour of Santa Casa! Again I was reminded of the incredible differences between the public and private health care systems in Brazil as Santa Casa has two different sections just for this purpose. The private section, though maybe a little crowded at first glance, is much nicer than the public section. There is a visible difference between the two just upon entering. It is a harsh comparison.
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| Meet and greet with the priest |
Tonight, I went to learn about the small childrens' library the nuns administer in one of the parishes here. It is just one room with a nice porch outside and it has books, games, and a few donated computers inside. It really is a wonderful little place and I absolutely loved it! Almost as soon as I walked into the room, the children (They come every Monday night while their parents attend mass. Today there were six.) pulled me to a table and asked me to play games with them. They were so intrigued when they found out that I spoke English and began to say the few English words that they knew from TV and from the little bit they learned in school. It was so fun! They wanted to know everything about me: my age, what I was doing there, where the United States was, did I have any dogs, what is my mother's name and my father's and my brother's, could I come over to their houses, why did I want to be a doctor, ..... etc. At the end of library time, which is when mass ends, the kids marched me over to the entrance of the church and introduced me to the priest! Since they eagerly took charge of photographing the evening, they even snapped a picture. Hahaha what a night!
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| The first game was a puzzle...and then we did puzzles for the rest of the night. |
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| Yara, the librarian and a good friend of the nuns', and the puzzle she did with some of the kids |
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| Adriana was so excited to meet someone new in the library! |
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| This little girl was so smart and she was so happy to help me with my Portuguese. After mass she introduced me to her mother. |
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| The two shelves of books you can see behind this little guy and me are the only two in the library. |
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| This puzzle was outer space themed! |
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| Just before we had to say goodbye, the kids got out the dress up clothes and the puppets. There was a lot of prancing around the room in various odd outfits! |
