Wow! São Paulo is a complete mixture; homeless people sleeping in cardboard boxes, huge roads, leafy streets with designer shops and beggars on the corner. On our first day here (Sunday 8 Feb) we were unable to get into our hotel so some of us got changed and caught a taxi to a local park where we could walk amongst the rainforest and say hello to the monkeys, the city is vast.  We also watched people doing yoga in this park - it was a 3 mile walk to this point - total dedication!

Yesterday, both the Brazilian and UK researchers did a ten minute presentation on who we are, what our background was and our research interests. Have already made good links with many colleagues in the UK contingent who come from Scotland, Wales and England but we have started to understand some of the challenges facing our Brazilian colleagues and the differences between our health and social care systems.
Today the facilitators talked more about qualitative research and the Brazilian health care system. Tomorrow we start working on potential projects and how we can help each other. My focus remains to explore the differences between the health care systems further, particularly their role of the community agent who is somebody who acts as a link between different communities and health care practitioners. Also want to hopefully contribute to the planning of a study looking at the implementation of infection control processes.