Today was back to the usual.

9:00am: Lecture at UFBA.  Today we heard from Sheila Alvim about Estudo Longitudinal de Saúde de Adulto or ELSA Brasil (for short), a longitudinal study of adult health.  The study is ongoing so only prevalence results are yet available.  There are 15,105 particpants, all civil servants who work at the Federal Universities.  Baselines were collected between 2008-2010 however, planning began in 2006.

Reports to date (May 2015)

Participant characteristics: majority are younger women with higher education in non-manual, non-routine jobs and ascending job trajectory (higher level jobs than parents) or “intragenerational social mobility.”  These characteristics make it hard to generalize results to total population.

– 63% of participants are either overweight (40.2%) or obese (22.9%)

– 8.8% self-reported diabetes however, 20% were ELSA diagnosed, meaning a lot of people didn’t know that they had diabetes at baseline.

– There have been 59 papers written based on collected date and 100+ still in the works.

After lunch, Simone took us to Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá, a terreiro for practicing Candomblé.

 Founded in 1910 by Mãe Aninha (1869-1938), Opô Afonjá is the largest terreiro in Salvador.  It was recently declared a national monument, a major achievement since not long ago practicing Candomblé was illegal.  Opô Afonjá has always been under female leadership which is not always the case.  The current leader, Mãe Stella de Oxossi (b. 1925), just celebrated her 90th birthday earlier this month.  Mãe Stella took over as Iyalorixás in 1976.  She is the first person to write a book about Candomblé because historically, stories and teachings were all passed through oral tradition.  To this day, photographs and videos are not allowed during Candomblé ceremonies.  Mãe Stella’s mission is to better educate people on what Candomblé really is and reduce negative stigma’s associated with the religion.

 

In the evening we went to see the Balé Folclórico da Bahia at the Teatro Miguel Santana in Pelourinho.  They performed pieces inspired by the Orixas of Candomblé, Capoeira, and Samba.  It was so incredible the hour went by in what felt like 15 minutes.  No photos or video allowed :/