Brazil Feb/March 2007 Day 1

27/2/07 - 7.20 AM

I'm back in Pindamonhangaba, the water is still going the wrong way down the plughole and just to confuse matters further it seems to be summer here.  I'm having a few problems with the website. Firstly the connection in my room is a wireless one and it isn't very good in this corner of the hotel. I wasted a lot of time last night trying to get a connection before I realised the problem.  Secondly I forgot both my camera card and the card reader for my laptop.  I realised at Heathrow that I hadn't got a camera card so I bought a new one.  All airports have Dixon's don't they ? I didn't notice that I had forgotten my card reader until last night.  I'm going to try and buy one in Pindamonhangaba today. Otherwise there are various ways I can get my pictures by borrowing stuff from the others.  In the meantime I am carrying on with text only. I have asked to be moved to another room with a better connection so I'm moving this afternoon.

ARRIVAL IN BRAZIL

All was going well until we hit turbulence about an hour an a half away from Sao Paulo.  The old problem of motion sickness hit me so that was me until we got to the airport.  I missed the evening meal too.  I was sitting next to a interesting young Brazilian guy. He was a biologist.  He told me that aircraft catering was never enough for him so he got mine too.  Once we got to the airport we met up with Nadeem who had been visiting another part of Brazil and arrived at the airport at the same time.  We then got the minibus or instrument of nauseating torture as I prefer to call it.  We got to the hotel, I threw up and then went to bed.  This was about 12.00 midnight Brazilian time but 3.00 am UK time.

FIRST DAY

When we arrived at the Department the Director Luiz was there in the lobby waiting for us and welcomed everyone when they arrived.  This was a really nice touch and I instantly forgot about the discomfort of getting there.  It was nice to see Marcelo again too.

The whole of the first day was lectures.  I sat in on it all to make sure that I understand the way that things are done here and that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.  The morning session was about impression taking for implant cases.  The lecturer really knew her stuff.  She is called Dr Vani but I need to check.  Marcelo acted as translator.  In the afternoon we talked about scientific method.  This was a very unusual presentation by husband and wife team Rosana Mansur Ponzoni and Tomas Johansen.  We were all a bit puzzled initially as a kind of free form discussion took place. However it got focussed later on and we are going to conduct a questionnaire of the patients that we see and analyse the results later.

In the evening I struggled with my internet connection for a while and then we all had dinner together in the hotel.  Some of the others wanted to go over impressions again so I held a tutorial in the restaurant and I tried to clear up any questions about impressions for implants.

I'm writing this in the morning of day 2.  We have patients in the clinic all day. More later, hopefully with some pictures one way or another.

This is where we are, about 1/3 of the way from Sao Paulo at the bottom left of this map and Rio de Janeiro in the top right corner.