S-A-J, the locals say

If you’re in Santo António de Jesus, a small city in the interior of the Bahian Recôncavo for two weeks, you might:

1. Watch a soccer in a crowded churrascaría. You might also ordered fried cheese, a real delicacy. Comes on a stick. Eaten with honey.

2. Hang out in the praça (central plaza) and watch teenagers and adults alike drive around and around on their motorcycles, showing off their well-dressed girlfriends. This little ritual can also be preformed with a bicycle, but the same deal with the women: they sit on the back of the bike, legs crossed because they’re wearing a dress.

3. Have churrasco (sort of like a cook-out) with very good friends who also tought us to forró (a dance with two steps to one side and then two steps to the other side. I think it looks like bachata, but everyone else assures me its VERY different.)



4. Have the great privledge of being mistaken for a doctor. “Dotora Raquel, meu joelho está doendo muito.” To which I replied, I have not the slightest idea what to do about your knee, ma’am. Not the slightest. What kind of doctor are you, she wanted to know. The poser kind.



5. Hang out six wonderful days, 8am to 5pm at CAPS, a day center for people with diagnoses ranging from bi-polar to schitzophrenia, depression to OCD. Completely state-funded, CAPS offers activities like gardening and chorus as well as 2 meals, group and private counseling services and meditation, literarcy classes and arts and crafts. The staff of CAPS includes 4 nurses who dispense morning and afternoon medicine, 2 psicologists, 2 receptionists, 2 doctors, 2 cooks, and, depending on the week 8 to 12 interns who coordinate activites (including parties, fashion shows and skits) for the patients (called “users” as an attempt to empower patients to feel like recepients of a service instead of sick people). My friend Megan and I had the extreme (and this is no exaggeration, it was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had here) pleasure of spending almost 9 hours a day talking and dancing with 30 lovely Brazilians that frequent CAPS. Because we’re students, people wanted to help us learn and let us observe anxiety support group meetings, counseling sessions, and injections (in the buttox!). Because the next month of the program is set aside for me to do research on the publically funded mental health care program, this was an absolutely ideal experience for me. My research will focus on the exploratory question of, “how is depression understood in rural Brazil”, giving special attention to stigmas that might prevent people from utilizing the free services available at CAPS. I’ll be stationed at another CAPS in a smaller rural town, also in the Recôncavo, called Cachoeira.