Continent #3: Sao Paulo, Brazil!!

Greetings from Sao Paulo, one of the biggest cities I've ever seen, filled with sunshine and romance! I am absolutely loving the life here! For the third time, I moved in with my Brazilian host family. I am living with a mom, Sueli, her 18-year old son, Filipe, and the maid, Maria. Sueli is so sweet and has been helping me learn Portugese and Filipe is also really nice. My new room mates (Eliza and Allison) and I are working really hard at bonding with him (he showed us his world cup sticker book yesterday so we are definitely making progress!). Sueli is a dentist and is also studying the laws of the universe, and Felipe just started dental school. Our apartment is right off of one of the main streets in Sao Paulo, Avenida Paulista. The location is amazing and I love walking around the area. There are two awesome parks with in a 15 minute run from the apartment so I am having a lot of fun exploring them. It is crazy to think how green this city feels compared to polluted Hanoi!


I am taking classes at the Santa Casa medical school which is about a 20ish minute bus ride from my home, but with the crazy traffic and the gorgeous weather, I prefer to walk to school. We have had a lot of great guest lecturers and site visits during our stay so far. We visited the Butantan Institute that makes vaccines from snake venom, obstetric hospitals, pro-choice NGOs (abortion is illegal here), an AIDS clinic, and have heard from speakers about Brazilian history, maternal and child health, the universal AIDS treatment program, and the universal health care system. All of this has been really interesting. All of our lectures have highlighted much of the inequalities that exist in Brazil between races and socioeconomic classes. Although there is an extremely large Black (Afro-Brazilian) population here, for the most part these people remain in extreme poverty and live in favelas, slums. I had the opportunity to visit a favela on the outskirts of the city last week which was really eye opening. Until 2 years ago, there was no infrastructure (running water or electricity), and the public elementary school was only built five years ago. This 1 school must cater to the needs of the 47,000 people that live in the favela, which leaves long lines on the waiting list. It was definitely something to see.

I also went with some people in my group to a ritual ceremony for the Afro-Brazilian religion called Candombe. The religion is based on a lot of African rituals that came to Brazil during slave trade. It was really cool to see the traditions and made me miss my life dancing around at church in South Africa.


Ive had so much fun exploring the city and all of the streets and shops. The city is covered in artistic graffiti which adds a lot of fun and excitement to the city buildings. There is horrible traffic 24 hours of the day, which makes sense in a city of 10 million! I have visited a lot of markets and quite a few museums, but still have so many more to see. Over the weekend, I went to the beach with some friends and my host brother which was absolutely gorgeous.
The water was a perfect temperature to swim in and I enjoyed laying out and drinking from a coconut in one hand and a caipirinha (the classic Brazilian cocktail) in the other. I also had my first real sea food experience - with shrimp, crab, and calamari. The city is filled with amazing tropical fruits and every restaurants sells delicious fruit juices! Ive been getting them almost every day. Yum!

Also, I have been making up for having no night life in South Africa and Vietnam here - which has been extremely fun! There are endless options for things to do at night, so I have been exploring different bars and clubs. Nothing even really starts until midnight and goes until all hours in the morning, basically just in time for breakfast the next morning. The city is also filled with so much PDA! People are kissing every where, on streets, in restaurants, even in the supermarket! This is definitely such a change from Vietnam!


All in all, I am loving this city!