My last night at SHAC

As the semester winds down and we get closer to graduation, I find myself coming up to a lot of "lasts": last week of classes, last papers to write, last time caring about grades...


Last night was my last time at the Student Health Action Coalition (SHAC) where I volunteer as a student social worker on a monthly basis. SHAC is a free health clinic in Carrboro run entirely by UNC graduate-level students that comes to life every Wednesday night for community members who don't have access to health care. Every single client who comes through the doors of the clinic meets with a representative of the School of Social Work, Public Health and finally a team of medical students who take care of anything from the common cold, and school physicals to pap smears and prescriptions (and if needed, dermatology, pregnancy testing and HIV/STD testing are also available). Each week volunteer attending physicians are present to hold case consult with each team of med students in order to assure quality control. The break room is always full of students and doctors consulting, talking, and planning.

Last night things felt different than usual. The majority of our clients are typically low-income families, and we have a significant number of Spanish-speaking immigrants who come to the clinic, but last night I talked to more middle-class clientele than ever before. Most had been recently laid off and had no access to health insurance. A bartender. A carpenter. A human resources specialist. This recession is no respecter of persons.

You don't see that every day!

Last night I was watching Nicole's pregnant belly from across the room, and a little bump protruded under her shirt and ran up the length of her belly. I know that those twins are in close quarters, but I never expected to see any visible complains from the tenants. I am still getting over how strange that was for me.


I am a little skeptical of this photo (because it makes the belly wall look as thin as saran wrap), but how is this to jog your imagination? Sometimes I wish we laid eggs.

Oh, and speaking of, Happy Easter!

Happy 100 year anniversary...

Today Marcos and I were having a romantic moment in celebration of our two-year anniversary, which is coming up on Sunday. We looked into each others eyes, and I lovingly mentioned that it has been two whole years.

In perfect unison, I continued with, "it feels like eighteen" as he said simultaneously, "it feels like thirty-five".

See? I knew I got the better end of the deal!

Conference was special this year

On Saturday, we attended general conference in the Conference Center at Temple Square. Our four-day trip to Salt Lake City was primarily in celebration of this day.

Above: Marcos, Danny (Marcos' older brother), his wife Marie, sister Belle and her friend Ben, and Pai and Mae.

We were able to sit in the second area back from the front, dead center. Because a lot of the people that sit in the front areas are general authorities from around the world (we saw our friends the Aoyagi family from Japan!), it was like a mini-United Nations sitting there in the front. I think at least three entire rows were packed with Brazilians.

Marcos' father was called as an Area Authority Seventy in Southern Brazil, so we are looking forward to five years of exciting stories and blessings as Pai gives his time as a voluntary leader of the church. Marcos was named after his father, and Pai never ceases to amaze us with his legacy of dedication, service, diligence and love.

Saturday afternoon, Pai was ordained at the Church Administration Building on Temple Square by Elder Scott.

Second day away

Sometimes I wonder why I gain five pounds every time I travel. Then I looked at these pictures from one day of our trip to Utah and realized that they all revolve around food.

At Lind's house, one event of the day was making my favorite bittersweet chocolate pear cake for Linds to experience. Hypothetically speaking, if you are ever tempted to pour cake batter in a smaller pan than is called for by the recipe, don't do it. It just may explode a bit over the edge and you will end of scraping burnt batter off of the oven. Hypothetically speaking.

For meat lovers and Brazil buffs, churrascaria is the way to go. On Friday night we were swept off to dinner with our Brazilian family and friends, and landed at Rodizio Grill in Salt Lake City.

For those of you unfamiliar with churrascarias - Brazilian steak houses - the style is for the waiters to come around table to table with meats and pineapple fresh off the grill. Each table has little wooden blocks painted green at one end and red at the other. If you are interested in having the waiters come by offering slices off of their meats, the green stays up. If you are full, or need a break, flip the red side up. The photo above is "Guto" with pineapple, and the photo below is garlic serloin.

Tio Fernando is Mae's (Marcos' mom's) brother. He was also visiting for General Conference. Below is Mae, Belle (Marcos' sister) and Pai. Belle lives in Salt Lake, but Mae and Pai came from Sao Paulo for the few weeks surrounding conference.

Four days out of town

Last week we left Wednesday night for Salt Lake City, and returned Monday morning. Marcos' parents were in town from Brazil for the church's April General Conference, and so we took the chance to do family time for four days. Here's day one in a nutshell.

(Disclaimer: If you currently live in Utah and are reading this and are feeling a bit annoyed or irritated that we didn't contact you when we were there, please don't take it personally. You're special, but we just really didn't contact anyone because we knew the trip would be so short).

On to Day One. It all started with a sandwich (see illustration below). Imagine everything bagels, smothered in garden vegetable cream cheese, piled high with lettuce and deli meats...


But the goodness didn't stop there. After a lazy morning at Danny and Marie's (Marcos' brother and sister-in-law), we piled the sandwiches and a picnic in the car, buckled in their 2-year old daughter Kaitlyn, and rode with Marie to the Frontrunner Station in Layton, where we caught the train into Salt Lake City.


Trains are one of my favorite forms of transportation. The Frontrunner is a newish commuter train that runs north of Salt Lake, and wanting to do something cheap but memorable, we bought round trip tickets into downtown.


The trains were nearly deserted at mid-day, so we were able to find a car all to ourselves, and we climbed to the upper level for better views.


At the visitors center on Temple Square, Kaitlyn discovered that the holes in the benches at the Christus doubled as obstacle courses.


Picnicking on the grounds at Temple Square.


Marie with her "I'm-a-new-home-owner" face. She had just received the news that she and Danny had been cleared for a brand new home they were hoping to buy (apropos: thinking of owning a home? $8,000 of free money for brand new home-owners who purchase before the end of the year).


Kaitlyn is really cute. Danny and Marie have similar coloring with Marcos and me, so we wonder if our little ones will look like Kaitlyn.


On to Maika's soccer game in the evening. Don't let the strategically timed photos fool you. Most of the game was frigid and rainy. Picture Linds (my sister) and I huddled under an umbrella, covered with a blanket watching the wind blow the neighbor soccer mom's umbrella inside out. It was tough, but we roughed it. Maika made it all worth while, with his three goals and awesome attitude.

Feijoada!

I have received enough requests for the Feijoada recipe we make that I have decided to create a post about it so that I have a recipe to which I can refer people. It was passed down to us from Danny and Marie, our brother and sister-in-law living in Utah, and it can be lovingly altered to taste how you like it.

Feijoada ("fay-zhwa-da") is considered to be the national dish of Brazil, and is a stewy black bean dish dominated by a meaty flavor, which is fragrant and moderately salty, but not spicy. In most Brazilian feijoada, odds and ends of beef and pork (including ears, and feet and such) are thrown into the pot, but as you will see, our version is much more tame. We usually eat feijoada over rice, with a side of farofa (a coarse, roasted cassava root flour), and vinaigrete, which is diced cucumbers, onion and tomato marinated in a yummy vinaigrette. Here she is.

Feijoada

1 bag of dry black beans (16 oz.)

One medium sized onion, diced

4 medium-sized cloves of garlic, minced

1 package of pre-cooked, diced ham (can also use home-baked versions, but stores sell vacuum-packed diced ham in the meat section if you are going for convenience)

1 sausage (again, in the meat section at the store, in the shape of a horseshoe)

1 tablespoon salt

2 bay leaves


Soak the black beans overnight in a large pot, leaving enough water for the beans to expand a bit as they hydrate. In the morning, rinse the beans and pull out the riffraff, and put the beans back into a crockpot on high heat. Add the diced ham, the salt, bay leaves, onion and garlic. Stir and cover with water, to about 1/2 of an inch above the top of the beans mixture. Leave the crockpot on high for six or seven hours (depending on how hot your crockpot gets), and add the sausage a few hours before you are ready to eat. Check the beans an hour or so before you plan to eat and make sure they are nearly done, and that there is enough water, but not too much. Before adding more water if need be, stir up the beans first, as the top can look more dried out than the rest. Some people mash some of the beans to make the stew broth a little thicker. Eat over rice with a side of salad or fruit and voila! Enjoy!

...so maybe SOME people are doing better in this economy...

Marcos and I were futzing around the house last night, cleaning up from our Brazilian feast a few nights ago and packing for our trip this week. For fun, we decided to listen to NPR's radio show "This American Life" for a little update of what is going on around the country.



One of the mini-stories we heard was from a dentist, who reported that he is seeing more chipped and broken teeth than he has ever seen before. Apparently, in response to the stressful economic climate, Americans are grating their teeth and clenching their jaws more than usual - even while they sleep.

I just can't think of a more stressful thing than having to pay a dental bill for stress-related broken teeth, on top of the stress that got you there in the first place. No, thank you. I'll be paying much closer attention to self-care from here on out...