Friday, May 9, 2008

Belem! Belem! and some pics









Description of Pics... Mike and I at the TV Studio/ Basilica Nazareth/ Docks of Belem/ District Conference w/ District Governor & husband/ Fiery Protest/ Angry Protesters/ At Unimed Health/ at Churrascarria

Hello! Sorry of the delay but I have been quite busy the past few days.
On Sunday and Monday evenings we spent our last hours in Santarem at the Riverside café drinking some more Nova Schin and enjoying the nightlife The Santarem Rotary clubs thought we were to leave on Monday morning so nothing was planned for the day so I decided to catch up on the news and make my fantasy baseball team during the day.

Once Tuesday afternoon arrived we headed to the Santarem airport. At about 3 pm we departed Santarem for the city of Belem. Belem is on the east coast of Brazil at the Mouth of the Amazon River Basin. We arrived here at about 6 pm local time which is 1 hour ahead of EST. We were all were looking out the airplane window and viewed the city's skyline which contained tall residential buildings up to 40 stories high. The cityscape looked beautiful from the air. The airport looked very new and modern. Upon our arrival after picking up our baggage our host family's were there waiting for us. My host is Wagner Parente. He is a second generation Italian living here in Belem with his wife and his son. His son is 18 and he has 2 other older children who live in Sau Paulo. My accomadations here are great. It is a large bedroom with a queen size bed, private bath, A/C, TV, and wireless internet. The maid cooks me breakfast and does my laundry everyday so I'm living well.

On Tuesday night we went to a Rotary meeting that had some of the best food I've had since I've been here. Wednesday was the 1st of 2 occupational days. I met my host for the day, Jose Maria, at the Unimed Geral Hospital in the morning. He introduced me to the Hospital Chief Medical Officer and Vice President. We spent a couple hours talking about the healthcare system in Brazil and I learned about many of the specifics about the business side of it. I won't bore you with the details but I found it to be very interesting. In the afternoon we visited the Unimed Central Business office and another Unimed outpatient facility. On Thursday morning, enroute to the hospital I was about to visit we ran into a protest. There were about 10 people protesting the city plans to make there street a 2 lane avenue. To voice there opinion they created a barrier of burning trash that blocked passage to the road. So we had to reroute our drive to the hospital. When we finally arrived, I was treated to a tour of the Adventist Hospital of Belem. It is branch of the Adventist Health System that is based in the USA. I met with the Vice President/CMO all morning and he gave me a tour of the entire campus. Again I learned a lot more about Brazilian healthcare and the Adventist Health system which is unique in its own right. My host for the day, Luis, and I met up with Mike and his host Valder and we all went to a Churrascurria "Brazilian Steakhouse" just like Fago De Chao. I have been looking forward to this type of meal since we arrived. We sat there for 2 hours eating all the varieties of meat that was offered. This was the best meal I have since we arrived in Brazil.

After rolling out of the restaurant we headed out to a media center where we visited one the local TV stations and newspapers. We got a tour of all the production rooms, studios, and met a couple of the on-air reporters. At the newspaper called the Diario, we were briefly interviewed and our picture was taken for the news paper. This morning on page A8 of the Diario you can see a photo of Mike and I along with a short article about why we are here. It was pretty cool to see us in paper, I will be sure to bring back so extra copies. Well I gotta go now. I will post some more things about today later. Go Flyers!!!!




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