Pastor do Menor; Steve and Aurea Alexander

Pastoral do Menor
I went to the Pastoral do Menor today to find out how the women’s sewing group run by Dona Ana is coming along with my idea of making recycled purses made out of can tops. Not too successful so far as it is difficult to obtain so many recycled can tops (500 needed) for one purse. But they showed me purses made out of recycled rubber which would be great for sacs used to grocery shop in the States.

I also delivered a laptop that my son Patrick donated to this incredible center and its 11 satellites which improve the lives of over 2000 at-risk children. The older students take a computer class with Pablo (a former attendee at the center) who skillfully teaches them Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Matter of fact, most of the employees are former children of the center who grew up here and developed the philosophy of giving.

Steve and Aurea Alexander
I am fortunate to have landed in Santarem where I already know some local folk. Steve Alexander is an American x-pat living here with his Brazilian wife, Aurea. Steve was my regional Peace Corps director when I was in the Peace Corps in Brasilia. He now is a tour guide and Aurea is a pediatrician. This week they showed me her two medical offices. One is public and the other private. She works tremendously hard and is very dedicated. It felt so good to see children they may have some medical problems but they almost all had their baby shots and looked like normal chubby babies, not skinny with big bellies as I saw during Peace Corps days. Aurea tells me though, that mal-nutrition is the number one problem with babies in Santarem. Polio is just about eradicated, but I know two young women at the university (one a rotary member) who had polio when they were young, but are highly functional now. I attended a session where babies were being given physical therapy and their moms were being trained.

Steve took me to meet Dona Dica Fracao. This 87 year old lady is a legend in Santarem. For 50 years she has been making clothes out of local material – plant roots, bark of trees. She designs the most incredible fashions (dresses, hats, purses, fans) and incorporates the native materials, excellent sewing and crocheting techniques. Each item is a one of a kind. Dona Dica has boundless energy and showed off her fashions one by one then went into detail about many of her items being worn by royalty and dignitaries world wide. Her shop is now a museum. (log in the Steve’s blog http://bosque-santa.blogspot.com (dated Friday June 13, 2008) to see more of Dona Dica as well as Steve's incredible pictures of local flora.