The Bartender / Counter Attendant

A house and happiness for my children and sisters, who have suffered as much as I have… these are the only dreams I have.

Introduction: Marlene works near Praça da Estação, where an undercurrent of drugs, violence and theft persists despite the city’s efforts to clean up the area and modernize the plaza surrounding the train station. Train service here consists of a main route to Vitoria, a large industrial city located about 230 miles away in the neighboring state of Espirito Santo. Regional bus service also operates in the area, transporting the working class to and from the poorer outskirts, or favelas, such as Santa Luzia.

Adjacent to these transportation hubs rests a plain four-story building referred to as “Edificio Central.” This building houses shops, offices and modest bars and luncheonettes where commuters unwind with end-of-day snacks, beer and cachaca. Here I find a middle-aged single mom working behind the counter of Real Lanches, an unassuming pastry shop that also serves beer and spirits. She has six children with three different fathers and presently supports her two youngest boys with the minimum salary (R$300, or $128 USD, monthly) that she earns at Real Lanches. She enjoys her job, especially interacting with clients.

Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2005

Arriving in Belo Horizonte.

I’ve been here since I was very small. I’m from Governador Valadares. I came here and never went back. My father was a truck driver and was always traveling.  Every place he traveled, he took us with him. We lived in Pirapora, we lived in Valadares. Then we came to Belo Horizonte. My father lost his job at the time. So we stayed here. I was about ten years old.

Before Belo Horizonte, we lived a life of traveling, going from place to place. Like tourism. There was a bunch of us! My mother and my sisters. Today we are eleven sisters. Two died: a boy and a girl. There were thirteen of us. I am the second oldest. We traveled a lot, but it was for my father’s work.

The conditions were difficult. Just so you have an idea, we didn’t sleep in a hotel. We slept inside the truck itself. At the time it was five of us kids. There was space because the truck had a seat that folded back. It formed kind of a double bed. So I guess everyone piled in there and slept. Then, later, when we came to Belo Horizonte, my father became unemployed, so we stayed here permanently. His job, the one he got here, was just to finish having his thirteen children.

Becoming a Street Vendor

After a while, my mother sold our plot of land and our house in Pirapora. I remember that half of the money belonged to my mother and half to my father. His share was for him to buy cachaça. And her share, she was going to invest.  So my mother gave my father his share, and she and I went downtown to do some shopping. We were going to buy some things for ourselves; we went to a store to buy fabric because I liked to sew by hand. Then, when she went to look in her purse, someone had cut her purse open and stole almost all of her money.

There was a small amount of money in another pocket of the purse. Then we went to the Central Market–it was her idea–to buy a box of tangerines. A box of tangerines!  We used what money was left and became street vendors. I was thirteen or fourteen years old at that time. Then my life, until I got married when I turned 17, was working as a street vendor. We worked on Curitiba Street and Padre Belchoir Street.

So I worked as a street vendor with my mother. I was her right hand, her left hand, I was everything to her. I have an older sister, but she worked as a domestic helper elsewhere.  And every time my mother got pregnant, she would go to the stall on the streets where she worked and give birth there.  She suffered so much!  After a quick visit to the hospital to check the newborn, she was back to the streets. She would get a cardboard box, lay the baby down there, and go to work. And I would watch over the younger ones and stay there waiting for her. There were a lot of inspectors who wouldn’t let us work on the street. And sometimes they would confiscate our merchandise. Street vendors here suffer. They take our merchandise, take it to the warehouse, and then you can’t get it back. Then you have to buy the merchandise all over again. Our life was very difficult.

Marlene’s Father

My father was terrible. He was a terrible husband and a somewhat terrible father too. He drank a lot, he beat my mother, I mean, he hit her. He hit my sisters a lot, and none of my sisters like him to this day. I was daddy’s and mommy’s favorite. I was their favorite. Everywhere he went, I went with him, so he treated me like a boy, like a son. So I was spoiled by him, and meanwhile, the others were beaten.

He used to drink in the bars near our house. He would come back drunk, sometimes covered in blood and cuts. There was one time he cut his ear, another time he was completely beaten up. He would drink, break everything in the house, it was terrible! Oh, and there was one time, when he was hitting my mother, we all ganged up on him to beat him up. An older woman called the police. He was in jail for a day or two. And I was sitting at the police station door waiting for him to get out. I’ll tell you something, he was terrible, nobody liked to look at him because he was so serious. Very serious.

One day our father abandoned us, but we didn’t miss him much. He didn’t actually abandon us, though. He died. Around the time, I had a temporary job working as a domestic helper for a family. He came by and said he had slaughtered a pig for us to eat. Pork meat. Then he went to my mother’s workplace. He was on a bicycle.  After talking with my mother he left on his bicycle again.  While riding his bike he was hit by a truck because he was drunk. He was hit by a truck in Horto. When I received the news, it was very upsetting. We went to visit him and he had lost consciousness. He was in a coma.

Every now and then, some Christians would come, you know, believers. Christians. They would visit him, they would go there every Sunday and talk to him. And he was in a coma for almost two months. Then one day he woke up and started talking. He came out of the coma. In one day! He came out of the coma, talked to me, and asked me, since I was the most sensible one, to help my mother take care of my siblings. Then, the next day, we heard on the radio that he had died. On the radio. That we should bring his documents, that he had passed away. The neighbor heard it and came to our house to tell us. Then we were in despair, in a panic. Despite everything, he was our father. He might not have been a good father, but at least he was our father.

My mother cried a lot at the time. We all cry, right? But she got over it quickly. I have an older sister who was actually relieved. I think if my mother hadn’t insisted, she wouldn’t even have gone to the funeral. Unfortunately, the sisters who are closest to me, when we talk about this, they say: “We didn’t have a father, we didn’t like him.”

I was the one who liked him. For me, he had his good side and his bad side, right? It seems like he obeyed me more; I was the one who went to pick him up from the bars when he was drunk. When he was fighting, I was the one who separated them. I was his “son” in a way. He also taught me everything he did. He made bricks to build walls, and I helped him. We carried sand to sell, truckloads of sand, and I helped him with everything. I was present in both his life and my mother’s life. My mother needed me at that moment. We were left alone to struggle, even harder, with so many children, right?

The Flood

We lived in a slum. The neighborhood was called Caetano Furquim. And in that neighborhood, when there was a flood, the Arrudas River, when it overflowed, it flooded everything. And one day the flooding carried away our house. Our house was destroyed. That was the most difficult phase for us. I was already 16 or 17 years old, I had already lost my father, and the river almost took us all away too. I was on the edge of the river, on the rocks, when the water passed. There was a friend with me and her daughter.

When the water came, she said, “I’m going upstairs, I’m going to get a bag of clothes.”

I said, “No, let’s go, let’s go up to the quarry, over there. Because the river is rising and there will be problems here.”

When she went inside her house, the flood came and carried her house away with her and everything.  It even appeared in the newspaper. I saw everything. I ran and climbed up to the quarry and we stayed up there watching the water carry away all the houses. That’s when life became even more difficult for us because, without a house, without a roof over our heads, without a father to help with anything – he wasn’t much good, but at least he would have helped with something if he had been there, right?

We suffered a lot. And my poor mother, working as a street vendor. We got a house in Conjunto Palmital. Everyone who lost their houses got one. But my mother was used to being near the city center, because Caetano Furquim, where we lived, was close to the city center for us. Besides working as a street vendor, she carried feed to sell to others who had pigs. So, she walked all over that city center with a cart. So she gave up, sold her house in Conjunto Palmital, and went back to where she lived before.

Marlene’s First Husband

He would come to my workplace every day, when I was a street vendor, and we got to know each other, and I got pregnant! When I turned 17, I got pregnant. I was dating, you know? So I went to live with the guy, the father of my child. The father of my first daughter. He bought a house there, and took me out of that favela, you know? So we went to live together. Yes, he was a good husband and a good father. We had four children.  His name is João Rodriguez.

He started traveling to Paraguay to get merchandise. How do you say it? Toys, radios, buying those things in Paraguay, and we improved our lives a little bit with that.

We built a trailer. It was all nicely arranged, it had a kitchen. We got a piece of land from the neighborhood association and built the trailer for ourselves.  So we were starting to build a life for ourselves.

At the time, my husband would buy things from thieves. So my husband would buy some of these things that others had stolen. And he would buy them and leave them in the house, things like a television, a camcorder, because at the time we were better off financially. Then one day the police arrested him. They broke his arm! We hired a lot of lawyers and managed to get him out of jail. But every week the police were there wanting money.

The police would come to our bar, drink free beer, take money, and I didn’t like them. I cursed them all. Getting rid of them was a huge sacrifice. To give you an idea, my husband paid them to destroy the evidence. Destroy the evidence? You have a record at the police station, a dirty record like you wouldn’t believe. Then you pay someone inside, you pay someone there and they burn the file. Understand? It disappears. That’s called destroying the evidence. So this country of ours is rotten. Brazil is rotten with corruption. Thieves steal for the police because the police themselves buy the stolen goods and also sell weapons to the thieves. So it’s terrible corruption! They asked for a large sum of money, my husband paid it, and they destroyed the evidence.  They never bothered him again.

Mother’s Passing

My mother was a righteous person, something we learned to be. I learned to be honest, upright. No lies. I hate lies! My mother, poor thing, from working so hard to support us, she got cancer. She got cancer and passed away, leaving behind a two-month-old daughter. One two-year-old, one three-year-old, all very young. Like steps on a ladder. When she died, she left behind a two-month-old baby girl. Today the youngest one lives in Rio. I saw her when she was born, but I don’t know her; she’s going to be 19 years old.

It’s been 18 years since my mother died. I used to go to the hospital all the time to visit her. When I went to the hospital to visit her, the disease was eating away at her. She would send us away, you know, to take care of our siblings. One day, she asked me to help my older sister take care of my younger sisters who were very small. I was married at the time and had a reasonable life.  So, my older sister stayed with the two-month-old baby and I took care of four of them: Júlia, Ana Paula, Ivani, and Zilda.

My mother, oh my! My mother struggled! She was a street vendor and hauled feed—spoiled food for the pigs—just to take care of my siblings, to provide for them. When there was a chicken to eat on Sunday, everyone jumped for joy. She always fought to give us the best. The only thing we didn’t have was affection because she didn’t have time to give affection. And my father, the way he was, couldn’t give affection because he was just stupid or drunk. But my mother didn’t have time, poor thing! Always doing something for us. I know she’s resting now. She was suffering here. At Christmas, we always get together, right? So there’s always a gathering, a kind of celebration. So we get together and try to bring something good for everyone. There’s a sister who cries a lot because that was the time my mother would buy a little gift for us, my mother was more present at that time of year.

Marlene’s Separation from her First Husband, João Rodriguez 

After eleven years together, I left him. He started hitting me, and since I had suffered a lot watching my mother being beaten, I decided to leave!

I think jealousy started to creep in due to the business we had. I interacted with many customers. It was a busy square, full of people, and I was working, but he didn’t like to work much; he preferred playing cards and going to bingo. And I stayed there working. Then I would get home at six or seven o’clock and go to sleep. All the money was in his hands. I wasn’t very happy with him, and then he started to want to hit me, so I separated from him.

I left him, and the children too, because they already had a good house and he had a business, so the structure we had built was there for my children.  After that, he did not let me see my children. He forbid me from seeing my children. My daughter, Bruna, was nine years old. She’s the oldest. And the youngest is João Paulo. He was three years old at the time. The other one is Michele – I don’t remember her age very well. Nor do I remember Juninho’s age.  I went more than a year without seeing them. Then I panicked and I was desperate.

More than a year without seeing them. I was at my godmother’s house. I attempted suicide. Being away from your children is the worst thing in life! I panicked, I went into a trance. I remember I lost my mind downtown, it was… oh my! It was the most difficult phase of my life. I was away from my children, I was crying. Oh my God, it was so bad!  I got very depressed! I took medicine, I wanted to jump off the overpass. I took pills, but you know, bad people don’t die. The medicine didn’t even work! After that I started getting drunk, drinking, drinking, drinking…

After I left my godmother’s house, I went to live with my sister. Just the two of us alone. She became unemployed, and so did I. So we ate cornmeal with water. I went hungry.  Like this: mix water with cornmeal and eat it. Boil it and eat it. Over and over again.

Thiago

Then I got pregnant and had another child. We did it like this, in the street. “In the street” means we met on the street, things happened, and we went to a motel. I had seen the guy a few times before. Then I had a child with him. But he didn’t take responsibility. He ran away. Oh, I don’t even remember his real name, but his nickname is Teu. He doesn’t help with anything, financially. So I had a child with Teu and his family would not allow him to take responsibility for the kid either. Our child is named Thiago and he lives in a boarding school. Thiago only comes home during the holidays. That’s what a boarding school is. So he stays there, he’s been there for three years. And he likes it there. It’s a place where there are only children. He’s a bit hot-headed, but since he lives far away from me, and only comes home during the holidays, when he arrives he’s well-behaved.

Thiago spends a month at my house during vacation, but wow, a month is enough! The father has never helped. Now all of a sudden I found out that he wants to go to court to take my son. He’s never seen him. Eleven years old and now the father wants to go to court and take him out of boarding school. The father wants to provide him a family and a fixed place to live. I don’t want to let him do this. The father never helped me! My son actually considers someone else to be his father. So it’s tough, isn’t it?

Ítalo

I also have a “little baby” boy. Five years old. His father’s name is… what’s his name again? He doesn’t help us much, but he gives us something sometimes. It’s been a year since he gave us anything. But ever since I gave birth, he always has helped me. My son doesn’t really know his father. The father wasn’t interested in getting to know his own son. He saw the boy a little until the day of the baptism, until he was two months old, and then never visited him again.

My son is crazy about studying. If he meets you, he’ll ask you questions. He asks everyone about their lives. He says, “My name is Ítalo, what’s your name? Oh, I’m five years old. My mom is going to put me in preschool.” He knows all the colors. I tell him, “Wow, you sound like a parrot, for goodness sake!” He says, “Wow, mommy, I love you!” That’s how he talks to me. He’s very affectionate with me. So, I’m planning to go to court, to a judge, to request child support to help take care of him and put him in school because he’s so eager to learn.

The little boy is very intelligent. He’s so sweet!

When he asks me for things, I say, “Mommy doesn’t have any money.”

“Oh, okay, mommy, I’ll wait for you to get money, I’ll wait, okay? I love you anyway.”

He’s very understanding. From observing the situation I think he’s come to realize that we don’t always have money. He keeps asking to be put in preschool, and I tell him: “Oh, my dear, when mommy has money, mommy will pay for a preschool for you.”

Then he says: “Ah, I’ll wait, mommy.”

He knows that the conditions aren’t good, so he understands.

He asks me for something, and I don’t have the money to buy it, and he says, “No, Mom, I’ll wait, I’ll wait.”

Real Lanches

I’ve been working here for six years. This place is called Real Lanches. It’s a pastry shop, a snack bar, and they also serve beer and spirits. But it’s more of a snack bar, not a bar like other places. When there was music here, it was packed. So, now there’s no music, right? And people prefer places that have music. It’s very difficult to get a job here because they only hire young, pretty girls, around 15 years old. So, I got this job through a guy who was taking over this bar. I proved to him that I’m a great employee and I stayed for a while. Then I left and went to work at another place called Rococó. When I left there, someone else had already taken my place here. But they already knew my work, so they hired me back.

Praça da Estação is known to the reporters who do television interviews. It’s considered a red-light district. But only by them, right? Because it’s not really like that here. One day they came to do an interview here in the square and said that the young girls who work here are only doing it to cover up what they’re really doing, which is prostitution. But that’s not true. It’s a lie. The reporters are the ones who said that. So, this place has a very bad reputation. All the people who work here are people in need, people who have families. It’s a place that hires girls without experience, but who are pretty and young. If they don’t prove their competence at work, they’re fired.

I work six days a week from three in the afternoon until midnight. I like my job. I have a very good boss. Despite his ignorance, he’s very good. He doesn’t give me orders at all. I do what I want here. Understand? I have freedom, as long as I respect the limits.  So I can’t complain. Not about that, anyway. It’s a good thing, but I don’t have a formal employment contract, do I? If I don’t work, I don’t get paid.

To give you an idea, I don’t feel like this is work at all. I like working with the public, you know? With people. I feel good. I joke around with everyone, you see everyone all the time, you don’t get down in the dumps, you don’t get frustrated, sometimes you arrive angry but, half an hour later you’re fine again! Here your mood improves. With the interaction with people, your mood, there’s no way it won’t be great. I always have someone to chat with, to talk to. Just yesterday, there were two guys there and we talked so much nonsense, so much rubbish! The bad thing is working in a place where you don’t like working and where everyone annoys you. Not here, here they try to cheer you up, they try to encourage you. The customers, you know?

Minimum Wage

I earn a minimum wage, around R$300. I live in the Tupi neighborhood. My neighborhood is good! It’s developed, it’s close to everything, so it’s good. I pay rent and I pay for childcare for my son, and there’s the water bill, the electricity bill, and with what’s left we buy something to eat. There’s nothing left over. There’s no way to save money! Rent is R$150, I pay R$60 for childcare, then the water bill comes to R$35 and the electricity bill is also R$35. I only take care of two children. The one who’s in school and the one who lives with me. The others, the two graduated from high school, they work at a health center. They are health agents. But they were raised alone. The four of them live alone. My responsibility is for the two youngest. Oh, I think my money literally stretches–it’s blessed, it somehow goes a long way.

Buses and Trains

There are quite a few buses here to Santa Luzia. It takes an hour and a half, an hour and forty minutes. Santa Luzia, and further beyond, there’s Palmital. That isn’t exactly a great place, but that’s where my children live.

There are so many people in line because there aren’t many buses. It’s a long way. The place is far away and they don’t put more buses on the line, so that’s why there’s such a long queue out there.

“Danger” doesn’t have a specific time, but at night, what makes things a little more difficult here at night is that the thieves come from other places. They wait for the train from Vitória to arrive to rob the poor people who are coming from Vitória. They form a little line, just like you see there. One day, they attacked an old woman, poor thing! An old woman! They concentrate in that little area there. Then they rob people, they steal, they put their hands in people’s pockets, take wallets, steal cell phones. Then they run off. They hover there, waiting for the next train to arrive.

I used to stand here by the door a lot, and I chased them away from here. I said, “No, not here by the door.” If you walk by and they see you have money, they’ll rob you. Those who are here to steal are weak, they’re not the tough ones. The strong ones who frequent this area, they don’t rob anyone around here. I know who deals drugs, I know who they are. They pass by on the street and they can greet me because they respect me. But they don’t come in here. Not here, because they know I’m serious.

Gunshots 

There are fights in all of these bars. There was a bar over there where they killed a guy recently. Yeah, they shot him. Yeah, they already killed someone there, right next door. Let’s see, about six months ago. They kill people here all the time. The guy came in, ran to the bathroom, then another guy arrived and shot him. For no reason! Well, there was a reason that we don’t know about.  But that’s what happened. I’m not afraid, though. It’s dangerous, right, but we have to work anyway.

I wasn’t here at the time, but last year two police officers were drinking beer at Real Lanches with some other girls who worked in the square. I was on the other side, I worked on the other side at the time. And then the girls’ boyfriends arrived and didn’t like it. And then an argument started. Two police officers and two young men who frequented the square, who were the boyfriends of the girls who were there.

They told me that some shots were fired and they told me that a bullet hit the wall, right? You can still see the bullet mark over there.  So, in this case, the ones who were harmed were the police officers. I don’t know who did it. I know that shooting started. From what I heard, the police officers showed their revolvers first. Then, the other guys started shooting. I know there was an exchange of gunfire.

They shot at the police officers as the police officers got into the car and drove away. They drove away, but the officers had already been hit.  Further down the road, the car crashed and one guy died.  One died on the spot and the other officer, from what I was told, became paralyzed. From gunshot wounds.

We can’t mess with guys like that, no, because it’s dangerous. It’s very dangerous. One of the two is now in jail. The other one isn’t. The other one is still out there. One of them, to give you an idea, when they pulled his record, he had crime after crime — he had a record over a meter long. They found an arsenal in his house, like… everything the army has, he possessed. Grenades, every kind of weapon. He’s a heavy hitter, a really dangerous guy, he has many homicides. Homicides. He killed many people. It’s drug-related. I know he’s involved with drugs. One is in jail, but the other one is still out there.

Brazil and Politics

To give you an idea: look at all the money they’re spending on this square here. How many people need a house, how many people live under a bridge, how many people are starving? What is our government doing? Wasting money! They built a beautiful new fountain over there in the square, they spent so much money on that thing but they should find better places to put their money to work.

The politicians don’t care about us, the people on the outside, how we live, if we’re starving.  And when we occasionally occupy abandoned places, abandoned lands, they go there and kick us out or even kill us. Why? Because the powerful ones, the ones at the top, the mayors, the councilmen, the candidates themselves, are all corrupt. There’s no way around it here.

They could use their money for good things. If Brazilians were truly humane, those who have a lot of money would at least share a little with the poor. It’s not about giving away all of their wealth, no, it’s about seeing who is starving, who is suffering, and going there and helping them out a little bit. Or helping a charity, a nursing home, a place with many children, a boarding school. Instead they are squandering the money. They are wasting  money. If you look around anywhere, you will see someone who needs help.

Politics here in Brazil, I’ll tell you, is just corruption on top of corruption. I know, because I went through a period of my life like that, too, back when I lived with the father of my children. They only arrange things to benefit themselves at our expense. They want to take money from the poor to get richer and climb higher and higher. And the difficulty for the poor is that they are getting poorer and poorer. Here in Brazil it never gets better. But to get worse, the way things are, it can’t get any worse either.

You can go there, look, look, look, and you see every little boy like that, sniffing glue… so young!  See that one over there?  Eight years old, ten years old. Stealing, sniffing… right? What they need is for someone to put them in a rehabilitation center to recover, to grow up and become men. Not to steal.

One thing that should exist in our Brazil is the death penalty. Theft, murder, boom! Because here it’s like this, the prisons here are all overcrowded. If there were the death penalty, there wouldn’t be so many thieves and violent crimes as there are today.

Favelas

Belo Horizonte is a calmer place than Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, where there’s even more killing and more robbery. A visitor came into Real Lanches the other day and said: “Listen, my daughter, it’s much calmer here than in Rio de Janeiro. If you go there, you won’t be able to handle it.” She said that if something happens to you in her community, you have to talk to the head of the favela. You can’t call the police there. The boss is the one who rules the favela. The police don’t go in there. She was telling me that Belo Horizonte is ten times better. Even with how things are here, it’s more peaceful than in Rio and São Paulo.

Let me tell you this: most of the favelas here—there’s the Serra Capivari favela, which they call “Shit Hit the Fan” and the Morro do Papagaio favela—in these favelas, outsiders can’t enter. Because they will think you’re some kind of powerful drug trafficker from another place who’s going there wanting to sell something. Or they will think you’re an undercover police officer going to investigate something. Understand? It’s dangerous. Sometimes they might just shoot without asking questions. The favelas here are dangerous. There are taxi drivers who won’t go in.

Happiness, God and Dreams

I am a very cheerful and happy woman today! Thank God! Having good health, my children having good health, I think that’s my greatest joy. And being able to work too, right? My mother, poor thing, she died many years ago. She didn’t die, she rested, because she suffered a lot.

Life was so hard, so cruel for her! I think the greatest happiness I’ve ever had in my life was when my babies were born. Because at that precise moment, you’re so happy, right? Yes, we forget everything else. Oh, my children are my happiness, and my grandchildren too.

I believe very much in God. I have a patron saint, Saint Expedite, but I’m not one to pray much. I believe a lot because whenever I ask for something, He opens doors for me. Just the fact that he doesn’t let me and my children go hungry is already a great blessing for me. That’s why I have no reason to be sad because, despite what I earn, I still manage to survive. Barely making ends meet, but I manage to survive and support my children.

To give you an idea, I think that if I ever won the Mega Sena lottery, I would help a lot of charities. I would help many charities, so many… I would go to some places where people are starving, I would feed them, I would give them food baskets… I believe that if I ever had a lot of money, I would help a lot of people in need.  Children at home starving, there’s nothing worse than that.

My dreams? A house and happiness for my children and sisters, who have suffered as much as I have… these are the only dreams I have.

Also, I would like to own my own business some day. I want to stop working for others and work for myself, and have my children by my side, my two children by my side, so I can keep an eye on them and earn enough money to at least pay the rent, right? Because a house is out of the question, I can’t buy one!  So, at least to have a more dignified life. I bought a hot dog cart. I want to buy an oven, you know, those small ovens? An oven for baking so I can make savory snacks. The salary for a snack maker today is around R$600, twice my current wage.  But I need a small oven.

« end »

Please feel free to comment on Marlene’s story.