i am currently killing time at the bus station in Rio. The bus leaves at 11pm, and I have been here since 7pm after spending 2 amazing days with Talita Calaça. For those of you who don’t know,Talita and I met while interning at Projeto TAMAR in February. I promised to visit her at some point, especially since I wanted to get to know Rio de Janeiro.

We did the touristy thing and went to see the statue of Christ. After braving various lines, a crazy van ride up the mountain through the forest, and CROWDS of tourists trying to do the same, we climbed 100000 sets of stairs to see one of the world’s wonders. He was actually kind of nice looking. He was overlooking Rio and the ocean, with the park behind him. Talita said that many postcards actually depict him facing the photographer with the ocean behind him, which is WRONG. And Rio the movie, according to Talita, depicts Rio the best of any movie she has seen. Bomb. Anyways, seeing Christ was quite expensive. We missed the little trolley that takes people up, so we had to take tourist vans instead. Those, and to pay to see Christ, we had to pay R$44! After that, we found a festa de Sao Joao being thrown at a nearby church, so we went to get somee traditional Sao Joao food (corn on the cob, meat on sticks, some pea soup (but it tastes alot better than it sounds), cocada, and this other dessert thing made with white corn, condensed milk, coconut, and cinnamon. Nom nom.

Yesterday night we took a 2-hour bus ride to Talita’s aunt’s house west of Rio de Janeiro City (although Talita argues that it is still IN the city). It is located in Guaratiba, a small fisherman’s village that overlooks the ocean, and she rents out two rooms to tourists during Carnaval. We stayed in these cozy rooms, and woke up to the view and sound of the ocean beating on the sand and the sun streaming through our windows. After a chocolate cake breakfast (YUM), we set off on an hour-long hike to a secluded beach nearby (or i guess not so nearby). Being in this place makes me realize how much I love traveling. It’s not necessarily the big city, fancy hotels that I see from the outside, famous beaches (Copacabana, Ipanema), or tourist attractions that I love. It’s the places that are naturally beautiful, you go with people you love, and that tourists don’t necessarily know about. I wish I could have stayed there forever with her crazy extended family. Big XOXO to Talita and Alberto for hosting me and ensuring that my trip was worth it (although any trip to Rio is worth it).

Now I’m headed back to Ubatuba, where I will spend the remainder of June. I’ll be back in Madison on July 2nd. Can’t wait to see everyone.

Yesterday Lucas took me out to visit the fishing nets that had been put out early in the morning. He and his friend paddled a canoe out, and then placed it perpendicular to the net, which was layed out in a U-shape, to catch the fish that swim in one end. As the pulled the net over the middle of the boat, fish, shrimp, jellyfish and trash that were caught in the net would drop into the canoe. It was really cool to see this type of fishing that has been done for centuries and continues to live on, despite the huge ships that are now predominantly over-fishing the oceans.

The coolest (and saddest) part of yesterday was that we pulled two turtles caught in the net. They were probably around 3 years old and maybe 4-5 kg. An imbricata (hawksbill) and a chelonia mydas (green) had swum right into the net on their way to sleep under the rocks right by the coast. The hawksbill is rare in these parts of Brazil, so it was that much more exciting to see it. After doing some CPR chest compressions until they spit up water in their lungs and were breathing regularly, we let them go.

It was unreal to see what we had learned about in theory during my time at TAMAR: that fishing is one of the biggest threats to sea turtles, but with the right training (turtle cpr) they were all right.

Six months ago to this day I got on a plane from Chicago and headed to Sao Paulo. 7 flights later, I had gone to Costa Rica (with connections in Lima and Miami), back to Sao Paulo, bussed it to Ubatuba and back, and finally arrived in Salvador.

The past half of a year has been a whirlwind of adventure, learning how to travel on my own in Costa Rica and Brazil. I feel ten times more confident in my abilities to plan trips, find the right busses (and in some cases, the wrong ones), fix things when they go wrong (miscommunications, busses that never come), and carry out a research project from start to finish.

I learned how to make rice and beans (not the ones that come out of a can), taught some Brazilians to put milk in their scrambled eggs to make them fluffy, learned how to sit on the frame of the bike while someone else pedaled for half an hour, and was taught how to catch a sleeping sea turtle. 

I learned that experience is the best teacher, public health is an amazing but very difficult thing to put into practice, and how to walk quickly in a crowded sidewalk. I made some great friends, both Brazilian and American- people who shared their lives with me so that they became intertwined with mine.

I’m taking these things back to Madison, to St. Paul, and anywhere else I may go in the future. I am not sad to be leaving- not yet, anyways. I’m happy to be going home, where I can flush toilet paper down the toilet, snuggle with my dogs, run to Picnic Point, move into my new house with Chloe and Amanda and decorate my door-less room. Throughout this journey I never thought I’d get this homesick, but I guess I’m ready to go home. 

Yes, I’m counting down. Not because I don’t love it here, but because I miss home. I’ve been gone for almost 6 months, and although I wasn’t expecting being homesick because of all the cool things I was going to be doing, it’s definitely hit me by now. 

We are on the home stretch of the program, writing a 35-40 page research paper due on the 15th. Since Lucas left about 10 days ago, I finally sat my butt down to write. But transcribing 10 interviews and trying to figure out how to statistically analyze 21 questionnaires without having a stats software program has been hard. The first few days were spent glued to my computer, earbuds in ears, listening to mothers talk about the difficulties of breastfeeding while studying in school AND then typing it word for word onto my trusty mac. My roommate angela and I have been going to UFBA’s (federal university of Bahia) newly-opened health library, where the breeze blows into the first floor where we are furiously typing. Staying there for upwards of 5 hours at a time can be satisfying, although we have both been frustrated by the lack of guidance and resources that this program has given us. Yesterday the power went out about 20 minutes after we got to the library… so I had to find another building to plug my computer into. The paper is going well though, even though I am writing it in both languages in order to leave behind something useful.

I can’t wait to get home to my mom and my dogs, to my bedroom where busses and trucks and cars aren’t blowing their horns in the windows at 5 am, where there is GRASS outside and cereal in the cupboard… then on to St. Paul where I see everyone I’ve missed for the past 6 months. My old housemates have a new blog up detailing the daily happenings in their kitchen, where they have made some amazing dishes and continue being the crazy amazing girls I loved living with. I’m moving into a room with no door (we’ll see how that goes), with neighbors who have 2 golden retrievers downstairs, and starting a fellowship where I get the chance to shadow nurses of all kinds. 

Time just moves so slowly when you’re really looking forward to something in the future (and stuck writing a huge paper in the meantime).