Pagar Mico

Pagar Mico. We have been hearing this phrase a lot. There is no exact translation into English but it is used to describe a "funny situation". Apparently, we are quite entertaining for the Brazilians and they let us know constantly. 

Today at work added to my list of proud achievements. I got to the chance to do a dental on a monkey! The monkeys were sedated and removed from their enclosure in order to obtain blood samples for an experiment by a doctorate student. However, similar to the States or any other country working with wildlife, if the wild animal is sedated for any reason you take the opportunity to complete a full physical exam and any other tests necessary. While we were drawing blood and placing catheters on the four monkeys, we each took turns cleaning their teeth. Let me tell you, the best part about dentals....the immediate visible results make you feel quite accomplished! Before and after photos are necessary in the small animal veterinary world that I am used to in the states. We use them to show clients the comparison and "prove" that their money was well spent! Here, we did not take before and afters, but we still felt completely satisfied with our work. We knew how much they needed a scale and polish with prophylaxis. The whole time Zalmir kept telling us what a quick and great team we were while working together. It is true, we all did a wonderful job!

After all the monkeys recovered, we had lunch and then headed to the laboratory. We assisted the doctoral candidate working with the monkeys and their samples. It was quite interesting to see how their lab worked. The fact that they work with wild animals, no machine/equipment is able to process the differences in red blood cell appearance between species, thus they do everything manually. We helped pipet (pipeta in Portuguese) and complete PCVs, TPs and titrations. It was a crash course in biochemistry, microbiology and organic chem. Let's just say the lab world is not a primary (or second or fifth...) interest of mine in the field of veterinary medicine. Plus, a foreign language laboratory is definitely not my forte (understatement). But, shockingly, I loved the afternoon in the lab! Time flew by and we had a blast. Michelle and Rene (don't pronounce the "r" and that is a male by the way...yes a male) are beyond helpful and unintentionally hilarious. They brought us coffee and had google translator opened up on the computer to help us all communicate. Honestly, that is a recipe for laughter and confusion. We would start talking and they would stare and point at the computer screen. then they would start and we would laugh and gesture for them to type as well. How in the world did my parents survive without the Internet for so long? (Generation problems). On top of everything else, the other workers stared at as completely confused as to who the heck we were and why we were there? I am not sure if they ever found out! We would smile and mispronounce everything. And they would just walk away. I wish I was bilingual! I swear I will master this language! And by master I mean, barely begin to speak and understand something, that's not too much to ask....I can dream right? 

All in all, it was one memorable day. I will think about the monkey who held my hand tonight while I cook dinner and get excited about what adventures tomorrow will bring. Pagar Mico...I can promise you that some will undoubtedly be this.