Merry Christmas from our growing family to yours...
We are excited to announce that Grace Anne is going to be a big sister in June 2011!
Friday, December 24, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
A Visit With Santa
We’re having a difficult time getting into the Christmas spirit when it is getting hotter and hotter every day. This past weekend, our condominium had a Christmas party for the kids. We were told that Santa came to the party two years ago via helicopter. We weren’t so lucky this year, but Santa did show up in a nice classic car. I guess it’s a little hard to drive his sleigh in 95’ weather.
We immediately felt terrible for poor Santa Claus. We were cooking in sleeveless shirts and shorts, while Santa was wearing the full up costume to include gloves. One of Santa’s elves was there wiping his brow after each kid sat in his lap. I can’t imagine how hot he must have been.
Grace was excited to see Santa this year. This is a big change from when she was a year old as you can see…
We had to bring a gift the day before so Santa would have something to give her. We sent in a $20 movie thinking that it wouldn’t be a great loss if it got lost. Obviously this was a mistake on our part. The majority of the kids were getting huge gifts; we’re talking some in the range of $200. We felt kind of bad, but what could we do? We told her that Santa was saving the best gifts for Christmas day.
We immediately felt terrible for poor Santa Claus. We were cooking in sleeveless shirts and shorts, while Santa was wearing the full up costume to include gloves. One of Santa’s elves was there wiping his brow after each kid sat in his lap. I can’t imagine how hot he must have been.
Grace was excited to see Santa this year. This is a big change from when she was a year old as you can see…
We had to bring a gift the day before so Santa would have something to give her. We sent in a $20 movie thinking that it wouldn’t be a great loss if it got lost. Obviously this was a mistake on our part. The majority of the kids were getting huge gifts; we’re talking some in the range of $200. We felt kind of bad, but what could we do? We told her that Santa was saving the best gifts for Christmas day.
Monday, December 6, 2010
The Help
I just finished reading The Help (What a great read!) and I couldn’t help but find a lot of common ties between the help in the south in the 1960’s and the help in modern day Rio.
Here in Brazil, you have help or you are the help. There is no middle class here. Every morning you can see hundreds of maids getting off buses and walking to their jobs. It is still a strange phenomenon to us.
In every apartment building we have been in, there is a service elevator and a social elevator. The staff is expected to use the service elevator and if we are moving anything or have groceries we are also expected to us the service elevator. There are also two entrances to every apartment. One leads directly into the kitchen and this is the service entrance and the social entrance leads into the main living area of the apartment. The kitchen is not a place of socialization as it is in the US. It is always separate from the rest of the apartment and is where your empregada (maid) hangs out, not your guests.
Attached to the kitchen in every apartment you have the maid’s bedroom. This is a room about the size of a large closet with a very small bathroom. We do not have a live-in maid so we use this area for storage. Live-in maids generally work Monday-Friday. They go home on Saturday mornings and come back early Monday morning.
The maids here are unbelievable. I came home one day to find the majority of Grace’s furniture on the balcony because Ana (our empregada) had moved it out there to clean Grace’s room. Each time she cleans she removes the books from the bookshelves to dust under them and wipes down the closet doors. She moves everything out of the bathroom and scrubs every surface (to include the walls, which are all tile). She cleans the windows and scrubs the balcony every week and vacuums out the cracks in the sliding glass doors every time she comes (twice a week). She does our laundry, changes the sheets, etc. I could go on and on. We are talking about thorough cleaning here.
Ana also cooks for us. She makes a limited number of things but they are all very good. I usually make sure she has something to cook to make sure she gets a good meal while she is here. She will never eat at our table. She has a spot in the kitchen where she eats and she always eats after us.
We are very lucky to have found Ana. We have heard of people having issues of stealing and not doing a good job cleaning but we have never had a problem. Ana always shows up with a smile on her face and is happy to have a job.
As I mentioned, Ana comes to our house twice a week. She has to take three buses to get here and three to get home (about 1.5-2 hours each way). She usually shows up between 9:00 and 9:30 and leaves around 5:00. We pay her the equivalent of $50 a day, which includes fare for all six bus rides. We are told we overpay her.
Now the empregadas are not to be confused with babás . You know a babá when you see someone wearing all white. The babá’s job is basically the same job as a nanny-to take care of the kids. A baba will never do any cleaning. When I take Grace to the park I am usually the only mother there, the rest are babás. I can’t imagine being raised this way, but here it is the norm. Often we will see families out to dinner and the babá is always with them. If the kids act up in the restaurant, the babá whisks the kid out so the parents can continue to enjoy their meal in peace. Some of the babás have children at home that they only see on the weekends.
I love having someone clean my house for me, but it is so foreign to me. There are some people who have full-time empregadas and babás. I just can’t imagine it. Twice a week is enough for me!
Here in Brazil, you have help or you are the help. There is no middle class here. Every morning you can see hundreds of maids getting off buses and walking to their jobs. It is still a strange phenomenon to us.
In every apartment building we have been in, there is a service elevator and a social elevator. The staff is expected to use the service elevator and if we are moving anything or have groceries we are also expected to us the service elevator. There are also two entrances to every apartment. One leads directly into the kitchen and this is the service entrance and the social entrance leads into the main living area of the apartment. The kitchen is not a place of socialization as it is in the US. It is always separate from the rest of the apartment and is where your empregada (maid) hangs out, not your guests.
Attached to the kitchen in every apartment you have the maid’s bedroom. This is a room about the size of a large closet with a very small bathroom. We do not have a live-in maid so we use this area for storage. Live-in maids generally work Monday-Friday. They go home on Saturday mornings and come back early Monday morning.
The maids here are unbelievable. I came home one day to find the majority of Grace’s furniture on the balcony because Ana (our empregada) had moved it out there to clean Grace’s room. Each time she cleans she removes the books from the bookshelves to dust under them and wipes down the closet doors. She moves everything out of the bathroom and scrubs every surface (to include the walls, which are all tile). She cleans the windows and scrubs the balcony every week and vacuums out the cracks in the sliding glass doors every time she comes (twice a week). She does our laundry, changes the sheets, etc. I could go on and on. We are talking about thorough cleaning here.
Ana also cooks for us. She makes a limited number of things but they are all very good. I usually make sure she has something to cook to make sure she gets a good meal while she is here. She will never eat at our table. She has a spot in the kitchen where she eats and she always eats after us.
We are very lucky to have found Ana. We have heard of people having issues of stealing and not doing a good job cleaning but we have never had a problem. Ana always shows up with a smile on her face and is happy to have a job.
As I mentioned, Ana comes to our house twice a week. She has to take three buses to get here and three to get home (about 1.5-2 hours each way). She usually shows up between 9:00 and 9:30 and leaves around 5:00. We pay her the equivalent of $50 a day, which includes fare for all six bus rides. We are told we overpay her.
Now the empregadas are not to be confused with babás . You know a babá when you see someone wearing all white. The babá’s job is basically the same job as a nanny-to take care of the kids. A baba will never do any cleaning. When I take Grace to the park I am usually the only mother there, the rest are babás. I can’t imagine being raised this way, but here it is the norm. Often we will see families out to dinner and the babá is always with them. If the kids act up in the restaurant, the babá whisks the kid out so the parents can continue to enjoy their meal in peace. Some of the babás have children at home that they only see on the weekends.
I love having someone clean my house for me, but it is so foreign to me. There are some people who have full-time empregadas and babás. I just can’t imagine it. Twice a week is enough for me!
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