Dona de Casa: Part Two

Today marks one month in our new home. A routine has established and I’m feeling much better about having the help around here. However, there are some things that are disturbing about having someone underfoot. Before I delve into the oddities of having someone around all day, let me rant for a minute.

First off, Lana’s name really isn’t Lana, its Nana. She never corrected me. About two weeks into her employment, she told Matthew it was Nana. It took me a few days to get it straight and Grace still calls her Lana. Secondly, for all of you who are wondering if Nana is pregnant, she is not. It did come out that she is on fertility pills, which is disturbing to me, since she is only sixteen. Does the government pay for fertility treatments? How many treatments are you allowed?, who qualifies? If she doesn’t, How can she afford this? Interesting thread here, considering people in the US pay beaucoup bucks for said treatments. Questions I would love to ask, again I feel mute…

This revelation does disturb me, but not as much as the day she communicated that she has been married for three years. I stared at her in amazement, as I slowly understood what she was saying. I reiterated what she said as best I could by making hand gestures and using broken Portuguese to make sure I understood that in fact she got married at thirteen. “Da, da, certo” (yes, yes, right) she said. I was, I AM, appalled! I felt like a great injustice was done to this girl. She quit school at thirteen and got married. I’ve been trying to understand this but having two girls, I don’t think I can swallow this bitter pill. I know I’m being ethnocentric here and yes this does happen in the States, but usually the girl is pregnant…but even then, thirteen is pretty much on the young end of the spectrum. To my credit I did talk to Francimar about this, to get a local perspective and she agrees that, as she says, “its disgusting” to allow a 13- year-old to get married, not to mention against the law. I prodded her a bit more and she went on to say that sometimes parents will go with the couple to the court and state that they are okay with the arrangement, then a type of adoption occurs, where the husband to be adopts the girl.

Brazilian law states that girls can marry at sixteen with parental consent, and Cosmo believes that if she did get married at thirteen, it was not a legal ceremony, or it was an adoption type arrangement. I also found out that children are not allow to work until they are 18, they must apprentice for two years before starting to work. I think Nana would have benefited from apprenticing, but since she is married she is exempt from this policy.

Okay, moving on to having someone in your stuff all day. After a month of having someone here, this is what’s bothering me. First of all, she shoves all of our personal stuff into all kinds of places, off of the counter surfaces and out of sight. She was probably told to keep all surface areas cleared of nick-nacks. So when we go to find, oh, lets say, a set of keys that were on the bureau, we have to hunt in all the drawers. Second, when I’m home, for example, the other day I was showing Gracie pictures on the camera, and I looked up and she was standing at the door staring at us. Then twice, I went to find my flip-flops and she was wearing them!! And to top it all off, I noticed she has been dipping into my facial cream--the movie Single White Female came to mind (those of you too young to get this reference here’s the link). So what, you might ask. Yea, so what, maybe I‘m being paranoid. So, she may be a little weird, a little young and I don’t want to say dense, but sometimes, yes, dense. Like washing my purple velour hand-towel with my white cotton bath towel (which is a lovely shade of lavender now)or putting fabric softner into the steam function on the iron because the bottle said "helps with ironing". But hey, she keeps my floors clean, has the coffee made by 7 every morning, and has lunch on the table everyday at 12:30. I’ve got nothing to complain about…except for the flip-flop thang, that’s kinda weird.