Yes, we are alive. No, we didn't forget to post. We ran into a few hiccups over that last few days. The Blogger site has been down and we have been away from the internet. Details will follow in the forthcoming posts. So here is what we did on Day 22:
We began the day by touring the healthcare campus at a private university. The Univeristy of Foratleza (UNIFOR for short) is a sprawling campus in Fortaleza. Roughly 60 000 students attend the university. That is larger than the city I grew up in! Here is a nod to Brandon, Manitoba... keep to dry land!
The healthcare faculty includes medicine, dentistry, nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech language pathology, audiology and dietitian faculties. Due to time restraints, we only had the opportunity to see the therapy portion of the campus. Although I would have loved to see the nursing facility, the opportunity to see the facility was fantastic. In my practice in Canada, I refer patients to these specialties all the time so it was nice to see what happens there.
An interesting part of the tour was the services available for free to the public. Students practice their specialty on campus and provide health services for free. The day we visited happened to be very raining. Hardly anyone was in the building. I guess it is like a blizzard in Canada; everyone stays home.
We then had lunch at one of Fortaleza’s Rotary Clubs called Oeste. They meet in a beautiful yacht club by the ocean. Oeste is the second largest of the 22 clubs in Fortaleza. We were fortunate to meet a couple leaders from previous GSE teams that traveled to the USA and Scotland. They also spoke English, which we always welcome.
After lunch, we headed a local market to do some shopping. Anyone on this trip can vouch for my love of shopping. If only I had more room to bring home my finds... The market was enormous at four levels high with too many stores to count. It was hard to contain my impulses but Laurie kept me honest. We did pick up some hammocks to bring home. So now we need to find a shrink ray gun to make it all fit. I wonder if they sell one at Walmart?
Following the market, we headed to the Dragao do Mar Cultural Center. This centre host numerous cultural activities like dance, theatre and museums. We had the chance to see the contemporary exhibit. May we suggest Googling Sergio Vega’s piece entitled Genesis According to Parrots (2004)? In case you all we wondering, it is the book of Genesis as told by parrots in a mixed media installation piece. Very interesting work...
Another intriguing exhibition was a collection from several artists in the style called Xilogravura. The artist carves an intricate design into a wood slab and then using pant and what looks like a newspaper press from yesteryear, transforms the image onto paper. The detail was amazing and often featured very dark images.
To round out the day, Laurie, Keith and I headed to the mall and caught a movie and had popcorn. The movie happened to be set in Rio so we all considered it an extension of our cultural experience. Slightly problem in that the there was Portuguese subtitles as the movie was in English. However, there were no English subtitles when the characters were speaking Portuguese or Spanish.
Jennifer
No comments:
Post a Comment