Santo Angelo Experience

It has been a very interesting almost week in Santo Angelo. I had settled in with host family Bacilla and Josef Mustafa and their daughters, Saima and Yasmine. Beautiful family and have enjoyed my time with them. Learning about teen culture in Brazil from Sai and Mini has been fun, really very similar to teenagers in United States and Canada. We toured a hospital that was both public and private. Later this week, I was able to meet with a group of medical and educational professionals who meet once a month to discuss a book they are reading "The Art of Dying". They had many questions and we were able to have a very meaningful discussion on the services Hospice of the Red River Valley offers and how my job as a grief counselor also fits into this. They do not yet have provisions for this type of service but it legitimized I think the belief of an important service to all human beings. This group has written many articles on the subject of the Art of Dying for the newspaper and we have arranged to exchange this information and research information I can give them. We are very excited for future contact. The group has also been asked to visualize the experience of what it would be like one day if they found they were dying and record how they would feel, what they may do. We also went to public and private schools in Santo Angelo, we were very impressed by the questions that we were asked and really enjoyed spending time sharing with the kids who were 5th grade to high school. We will be continuing on to visit the URI University again tomorrow, go to the San Miguel Missions, Tuesday we will be doing our presentation to the four Rotary groups and Wednesday we are "on the road again" (I think there is a song in there) on our way to Santa Rosa where we will be for approximately a week. Thank you Santo Angelo for a very memorable week, I have learned much and feel like I will leave with many friends and contacts that I would not have had without the commitment of my host mother, Bacilla and other Rotarians of Santo Angelo.