Closure - Shelley's Thoughts on August 9, 2012

The privilege to participate in the Brazil Fellowship offered an experience that was powerful in ways that cannot be put into words.  I have many rich feelings in my heart, many thoughts and ideas in my mind and many sounds in my head.  I have absorbed this experience in every cell and formed bonds that will go well beyond the visit itself.  I am sure that what I have gained will come forth from me when the time is right, when the information is needed, when the learnings can be used in ways that benefit the communities that I serve.  Absorb, process, use… re-tool, re-absorb, re-process and use again and again.  That is how I think of learning.  The sites, visits, lessons, people, they are all inside me just waiting for to be turned into something beautiful that will benefit others.  So I need to assure myself that putting everything down on paper is not important.  Lessons learned go in and out of my head and I keep thinking I need to fit them all into this blog post in a cohesive and meaningful way.  The post would then never get written.  It is just too much.  I have to trust in the process of integration and release.

The language barrier was apparent on several occasions and it was almost embarrassing how little time I had taken to learn at least a small part of the language of the country I visited.  This limited my ability to gain the fuller picture I might have wanted as I visited the many social service agencies that graciously agreed to provide us with an overview of what Curitiba (and, in some instances, Parana) has to offer its citizens.  It prevented me from digging into issues in a way that would have brought more clarity to what I was hearing.

The whirlwind tour of many agencies provided a 1000’ view of what Curitiba offers its “at risk” citizens and, I believe, provided a view of some of the best that Curitiba has to offer.  Time constraints and, again, the language barrier made it difficult to determine exactly what was meant by “at risk” in various situations and what Curitiba offers citizens who are not “at risk”.  Still, the 1000’ view contained numerous lessons that can be integrated into my life and my work.

During the two weeks I was in Brazil, I entered into what felt like a private world of illness, homelessness and poverty.  And in this world I saw resilience, ingenuity, hope, love, caring and pride. The concepts I was introduced to through visits to the Legislative Assembly and the office of the Secretary of Health of Parana provided an overarching understanding of the concern and care that the government has for its citizens and the programs and the support services that have been put in place.  Visits to district centers and their “mini city halls” provided a view of the next level of government support, a more local mirror of the city and national programs.  And the visits to health clinics, community organizations where women gather to create crafts to sell, after-school programs where juveniles gather to gain skills that will keep them off the streets and assist them in building a better life for themselves and family centers where day care is provided for families and families can come together to support themselves in local and meaningful ways completed a picture of top-down implementation of a vision of support and caring.

I experienced a very close up and personal view of the depth of personal relationships among Curitibans.  I visited and dined with several families, met caregivers, spoke at length to those fighting for the rights of the disadvantaged and talked to those who live their lives so as to just get by day-by-day.  Here I was in the trenches of life in Curitiba and had a courtside view of what that life is like for people of various social strata in the city.

In my blog postings, I wrote about some of the most impactful experiences I witnessed or heard about.  Julia’s music therapy project left me with a deeper appreciation for music as a means of self expression, joy, bonding and emotional release.  Valeria’s diligence in providing a voice of advocacy for those who cannot advocate for themselves left me in tears.  The women of Amigas da Mama left me with an image of the important cocoon of support that can be offered just by having a place where one can go to find people who have walked the same journey.  Rosangela’s sharing of her time, life, friends and supporters left me with a deeper understanding of home and family.  Through the weeks it became clearer and clearer to me that the system does not work at all without those willing to give of themselves to provide the personal interactions that truly make the system work.

As I wrote before, I was left with this conceptual image:  the healthcare and social service systems in Brazil seem to be much like a prism.  In the daylight, the prism is beautiful and colorful from all angles.  But on a cloudy day, the beauty and colors are not readily available.  I will need to use my own recall to remember the beauty.  And I will hold onto this image with the memory of the many individuals who are working hard to assist others in navigating a system that is large, overwhelming and maybe easy to get lost in.  Those helping others are the living beautiful colorful aspects of the prism and they, in turn, see the beauty and colors in each individual who needs their help.  Together they make the system work.  They provide the light needed for the prism to beam with beauty even on the cloudiest of days.

I believe that the five American travelers all left behind a positive impression of us, our organizations and our country.  Two emails that I have received after arriving home support that belief:

First, Rosangela wrote to me: “I think that you really understood what I tried to give you, my place, my heart, my love……. As you can see, I was able to do a lot, only because I have very good friends by my side and I’ll be forever thankful to all of them.  I don’t have lots of money but I’m a very rich person – I have lots of friends around me and they were glad you and the other girls came to see a little bit of what we are.”

Rosangela was referencing my blog post about the meaning of “home”.  She had said to us before we left that she felt like she did not do enough for us and that she was sorry that she could not invite us into her house for dinner as Julia and Valeria had.  Her house was too small for all of us to fit in.  Yet, her (and other’s) pride for their country and their work, and their care for each other, were so evident in what they gave to us and I cannot say enough about how that was reflected in each and every encounter we had with someone whose homeland is Brazil.

Second, Valeria wrote to me: “I renewed my strength to this task continius our hard volunteer work.  Thanks especially to you, who brought the identification of our work.”

I think Valeria is referring to the story I told at the night of our presentations.  I reflected on the impact that my visit to Amigas da Mama had on me, particularly the moments when the women of Amigas da Mama surrounded a newcomer with love and support, forming a visible bond that brought me to two conclusions:

The first is something I said in my blog.  “Sometimes it is the hardest parts of our journey that leave us with the strongest memories of all the warmth and love that we can experience in this life.  Companionship such as I saw today cannot be purchased and is worth more than anything money can buy.”

The second is that while it is very important to hold the larger vision of how we would like the world to be, it is often more important to hold the vision of the one individual we are helping in any given moment.  We can sometimes forget that important piece in the midst of our competing with other agencies for funding, wanting to be the ones to win the battle, wanting to be the ones who get recognized for providing the solution to a problem and wanting our organization to be the “best”.  We all have a function, a role, in this cog we call life.  Making sure the role is one that benefits someone in need really is, for me, the higher calling.

This experience validated all that I do to support an organization created to help individuals, families and caregivers navigate through their own cancer journeys, as well as the several other organizations I devote my time to.  So did I give Valeria strength or did she give strength to me?  It clearly went both ways.  Isn’t this what this Brazil Fellowship program is all about?