A Closer Walk TONIGHT

Tonight, PBS will be showing the documentary, "A Closer Walk," which
chronicles the HIV/AIDS crisis. I encourage you to check your local
listings for PBS (your local public broadcasting station), and to not miss
this film. I believe the broadcast will be at 9 pm in most areas.

Speakers for R$22,90

We occasionally will watch a movie in the evening on the weekends on one of our laptops. Unfortunately, the speakers built in to most laptops these days simply will not broadcast a loud enough sound to watch a movie. Thus, we have been left to surround the computer in a group of three sharing 2 sets of headphones.

For that reason, tonight while at Hiper Bompreço (Walmart Brasil, actually owned by Walmart), I purchased a set of computer speakers for R$ 22,90, the equivalent of $11.00 in the U.S. Arriving back home, of course I hurriedly plugged in my computer to test out the new devices. I didn't expect much for $10, but the speakers amplified the sound reasonably well, with only some loss of quality. Or at least that is what happened for the first 5 minutes of their use…

After about 5 minutes, there was a resounding pop, followed by the smell of burning plastic. Apparently, that is what one gets for R$22,90: speakers that function for only 5 minutes. It goes without saying that I will soon be returning to Hiper Bompreço in an attempt to recover my R$22,90, and I can only hope that that adventure proceeds more smoothly than my ongoing adventures with the Brazilian Embassy and Federal Police.

Photo Update: Centro and a Look at Rodolfo Teófilo

This week's photo update includes photos from shopping in the Centro neighborhood, as well as some photos from the neighborhood where I currently live, Rodolfo Teófilo. For those of my friends who have suggested that I have posted too many beautiful beach photos, this week's update includes no such photos...

Shopping at an Open Market in Centro


Puppies in Centro


Rodolfo Teófilo Correios (Post Office)


Banco de Leite Humano (Leite=milk,Banco=bank,Humano=human,de=of)
Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like...


Rua Professor Costa Mendes, a main road in Rodolfo Teófilo


Chris Studying Portuguese




As always, I welcome comments, questions, or advice on dealing with the Brazilian embassy and Federal Polce of Brazil, who continue to ignore me.

Portuguese, Presentations, Police

This week, we've been working on translating the protocols for our study into Portuguese. Translating scientific protocols is definitely a way to improve your Portuguese. Next Friday, I'll have to give a presentation on the physical fitness project in Portuguese along with Ben, the other Fogarty fellow.

Tonight, at 11 pm, we'll journey to the airport to meet Nate Ostheimer, one of my classmates at UVA Med who will be here in Fortaleza for the next 6 months. He also has created a blog to which I'll add a link later today on my blog site. It will be good to welcome Nate tonight. In another week and a half, we'll welcome our UVA mentor, Dr. Guerrant, who will be back in Fortaleza for a week. A week or so later, Chris Brown, another of my UVA classmates will join us here in Fortaleza. Chris will also be here for several months as part of a different research project.

Meanwhile, I continue to struggle to register with the Federal Police. I have been hung up on by the Brazilian Embassy in Washington, and Brazilian Consular Service in Washington many times this week, in addition to a series of 6 unanswered emails that I've sent to the consular service and ambassador. I hopefully will eventually be able to get in contact with someonewho can actually help me resolve the issues with my visa, but things haven't went so well thus far...

Aside from that matter, I'm enjoying the time in Fortaleza, and continue to work on Portuguese and getting the physical fitness study up and running, my two primary tasks right now. The weather remains perfect: I'm not sure that the job of weather forecaster even exists here, as aside from rainy season, one could simply forecast a high of 85, a low of 75, and sunny, and be correct 99% of the time. I hope that everyone reading this is well, and feel free to post your comments, questions, or advice on navigating the Brazilian bureaucracy.

Adventures in Brazilian Bureaucracy

DISCLAIMER: The following story is meant to serve as a cautionary tale to anyone planning a long-term stay in Brazil. In no way does the author intend to imply any negative opinion of any Brazilian agency or official. In fact, the author considers the Federal Police, SUDENE, and the Brazilian Embassy to be highly efficient agencies that accomplish their purposes with great proficiency.

The line above aptly titles this account of my attempts over the last two weeks to register as a foreign citizen with the Federal Police. First, a little background: As a student here on a 1-year temporary visa, I am required to register with the Federal police of Brazil within 30 days of my arrival. This certainly sounds easy enough, take a bus to the federal police station, bring a few passport photos, a copy of my visa application, and my passport and I should be all set. In practice, a bit more difficult:

After reading on the internet that to register, one needed to bring a notarized copy of their passport, an original copy of their visa application, 2 passport photos, and their passport to the Federal Police, Ben and I did just that. After spending a morning finding a Brazilian notary, we arrived at the Federal police office only to learn that in Brazil, passport photos were a different size, and ours would certainly not be acceptable. By this time, it was growing late, and so we headed back into town to obtain new passport photos of the correct size. By the time this task was complete, the Federal Police office was closed, and so registration would have to wait until the next day (or perhaps longer…)

The next day, after spending a few moments looking at the map, we immediately realized that the Federal police station appeared to be a simple ten minute bus ride on a road called Avenida Borges de Melo. And so we walked to a bus stop on one of the main roads, Avenida José Bastos, and boarded the bus Borges de Melo 2. Little did we know how important that number 2 was. After 2 hours of circling the city in the opposite direction that we had hoped, we realized that a deeper knowledge of the Fortaleza bus system might be worthwhile after all. (Side note: There are about a 100 or more bus routes in Fortaleza. I am told that no map exists of these routes. I was also told that there was NO source available to figure out the routes, but a little google searching revealed: http://www.ettusa.ce.gov.br/ If you ever find yourself in need of taking a bus in Fortaleza, please save yourself a 2 hour bus ride in the wrong direction and read this site first. )

After our unplanned tour of some of the not-so scenic portions of Fortaleza, we did finally arrive at the Federal police. At this point, things should be simple, or so I thought. Wait in line for a few minutes, turn in my forms, go to the Bank of Brazil to pay my registration fee, and I should be registered for the year. I chuckle now at my ignorance…

After waiting in line for some time, Ben and I reached the head of the line. Now you may recall that I mentioned that one of the requirements for registering was an original copy of one’s visa application. I’ll spare you our luggage story, but suffice it to say that one of my suitcases is still sitting in Brazilian customs in Fortaleza, and one of Ben’s suitcases is sitting in customs in Manaus (Why Manaus? Another long story…) Unfortunately, Ben’s visa application also is sitting in Manaus in the aforementioned suitcase. And so, Ben’s attempt to register was immediately denied by the Federal Police, in spite of the fact that he had a letter from the local US embassy which was supposed to replace the lost document. Still, I remained hopeful that I could complete registration. I presented each of the required documents, was fingerprinted, filled out some forms in Portuguese, and sat waiting for the process to complete. Suddenly, I noticed the Federal Police official looking more closely at my passport. He then stood up, and began showing my passport to other federal police officials. In case you haven’t guessed, that never bodes well. He then returned to let me know that because my passport did not have the words: “Universidade Federal do Ceará” written adjacent to the visa along with the letters RN and a four digit code to indicate the sponsoring organization for my visa., I could not register. Now, I quickly pointed out that in fact this very notation was written on my visa application by the Brazilian Embassy in Washington D.C., but as the Federal police quickly pointed out, the information was not written in my passport.

Obviously, I thought, there has to be a simple solution to this dilemma, but then I quickly realized that I probably had already missed the right time to try crying, and that I also probably lacked the appropriate number of official stamps and titles to easily accomplish anything else within the bureaucracy. Instead, I was told that I would need to send my passport back to Washington D.C. for the appropriate notation to be made. And so now, one week after I began attempting to register, I sit here still emailing the Brazilian Embassy in Washington and various other agencies in Brazil in an attempt to sort this out. Appropriately enough, my latest contact, as directed by the embassy in Washington, has been with an agency in Brazil called SUDENE. I read their website to try to figure out their role in this mess, and although my Portuguese is not great, I think I was able to decipher that their principal role is to handle communication between other agencies in Brazilian government. In a sense, SUDENE, or at least my contact at SUDENE’s sole purpose is to navigate the bureaucracy of the Brazilian government. It has been three days since I contacted them, and I have not yet heard back, so I suspect that they are quite the busy agency…

Reading, Holidays, Pizza Hut

Yesterday was a Brazilian National holiday, Assumption Day, which lead to us having the day off from the lab. This allowed me to read a bit, work on Portuguese, and have dinner with a Brasilian medical student and her friends. I have enjoyed the opportunity here to read for pleasure, something that I've done little of in the last few years of medical school. I just completed Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, a chronicle of Paul Farmer's work in the area of global health. I am now nearly halfway through the Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have delayed seeing the films of this series for some time, as I had planned to first read the books. Unfortunately, with the demands of the 3rd year of med school, I am only now getting started reading the series.
Thus far though, it has been a great read, and I'm glad I delayed seeing the
movie.

Last night, Ben and I joined Germana, a medical student here at UFC, and some of her friends for pizza at Pizza Hut. Now, I assure you that the restaurant choice was their's not ours as we plan to avoid American
restaurants (especially McDonalds) while here in favor of experiencing the many great local restaurants. In any case though, it was good to meet some other Brazilians, and spend an evening hearing Portuguese spoken (albeit little of it from my mouth), as that definitely will aid my language acquisition.

Today, I have some meetings in reference to the physical fitness study in the morning, and then hopefully will be able to really get started on my
project with the remainder of the week. The weather remains perfect, I continue to adjust to life in Brazil, and I continue to strive to communicate in Portuguese. In the future I plan to continue to try to post a text update at least weekly, in addition to a weekly photo update. I have also taken many more photos not posted on this blog, which are freely available on a Kodak Ofoto site. Email me if you'd like to check any of those out. I've tried to select a few of the best each week for the blog, as I realize that most of you do not want to sort through the 50-100
pictures that we've been taking weekly.

A Closer Walk on PBS

I just wanted to plug PBS' (your local public broadcasting station) upcoming showing of the documentary "A Closer Walk," which will air on the evening of August 31. I've seen this film four times, most recently at Fogarty orientation, and I highly recommend it. It is a documentary illustrating the impact of the HIV/AIDS crisis around the world, with many personal accounts of the impact of the disease. The time of the showing of the film varies by time zone, but check your listings as this film should not be missed. I warn you that the film can and should disturb you, and hope that it will make many more aware of the magnitude of the impact of HIV/AIDS worldwide.

www.acloserwalk.org

Below i've posted some photos from the last week, mostly from the weekend that I spent at Morro Branco. Morro Branco is a beach located about 57 miles down the coast from Fortaleza, about a two hour bus ride from the bus station (rodoviaria) in Fortaleza. We also visited Praia das Fontes, another beach an hour walk from Morro Branco. I'll post some more about the trip later this week, but for now, check out the photos.



Chris in Fortaleza at the Gira Sol Restaurant (where I'm staying this month)



View of Morro Branco from Above


Chris at Morro Branco


Chris Traversing Morro Branco


Arriving at Morro Branco


Atlantic Coast at Morro Branco




Sunset at Morro Branco


Sunset at Morro Branco

Photos Week 1

Rodolfo Teofilo, My Current Neighborhood


Chris in the Atlantic Ocean at Praia do Futuro


Chris and Rita (guesthouse owner) with Fortaleza Skyline


Chris in Rodolfo Teofilo


View of Downtown Fortaleza


Neto, Ben and Chris at 50 Sabores Sorveteria

Adjusting to Fortaleza

Blog Entry 8/5/06

Today, I finally feel as though I’m getting over the initial culture/language shock of arriving in Brazil. Ben and I were talking last night about the difference in going abroad for 1-2 months versus an entire year. When one travels to another country for a few weeks to a few months, as I have in the past, there is a clear endpoint in sight at all times. However with this trip, for the first time, I feel that there isn’t necessarily a clear endpoint in sight right now, which I’ll confess was initially overwhelming as I began my year in Brazil. While this is one challenge of a year abroad, I also feel that it is one of the greatest parts of the Fogarty program, in that one must adapt to life in another culture without that clear endpoint in sight.

Regarding language, my Portuguese is beginning to improve, as I’ve spent several hours a day using the Rosetta Stone language software for Portuguese. After some practice, I now feel that I can follow at least some of the conversations that I hear. Portuguese will remain my primary task for the beginning of the next week, but I will begin with the research later next week, while continuing to study Portuguese.

My project again seems to have changed, with a new initial focus that I am very excited about. I will ultimately work with some of my Brazilian colleagues on some molecular diagnostic tests for diarrhea in children in the laboratory, but my initial project will be to take charge of a community study related to physical fitness in children as related to some genetic and environmental determinants. It should be an interesting and fun project that will take me frequently into the local community.

My culinary experiences thus far in Fortaleza have also been enjoyable, as I’ve had some excellent seafood (fish, shrimp, and lobster) and incredible fruit (pineapple, guava, mango, and melon).

And so after 3 days in Fortaleza, I am settling in and beginning to enjoy life here. Boa noite!

Arrival

This morning, after some 18 hours of flights and connections that carried us from Philadelphia to Miami to Manaus, Brazil to Belem, Brazil to Fortaleza, we finally arrived at our destination. We were minus two bags that we had initially carried on, but were then forced to gate check in Miami. I then lost another bag of lab supplies temporarily to Customs, with that bag hopefully being liberated from the Fortaleza airport customs office by next week. My lost abg has been found, and Ben's should be en route tomorrow, hopefully resolving our baggage issues.

The bigger issue that I face currently is the language barrier, as I realize how big a task learning Portuguese will be. There's also a little bit of the initial culture shock that is inevitable. Fortaleza in many ways resembles to me a larger more modern version of Guinea-Bissau with similar Portuguese style architecture and sharp juxtopositions of poverty and wealth. The city though is 10 times larger than Bissau, so it will prove quite a chore to learn to navigate, while also learning Portuguese.

Today, we stopped in at the lab, settled into our temporary housing, and may do some further exploring of the city later. Tomorrow we'll meet with Dr. Lima, our site mentor, and then should continue settling into Fortaleza. I'll hopefully be able to post some photos soon, as soon as the remainder of my luggage arrives with the cable to transfer photos from my camera. I can leave with you a taste of the cliamte though, as it is currently feels like the temperature is in the mid to upper 80s, with some humidity. The weather is refreshing relative to the heat wave that we left in the Eastern US.

Boa tarde from Fortaleza!