The Prostitute
Everything that I do is for them, if I am in this today it is for them. Children are the best thing that God put in this world!
Introduction: When we met Carol, a single mother of two young children, she had been living in Belo Horizonte for a little over a year and had been working for four months as a prostitute. She came to Belo Horizonte from Governador Valadares, a smaller industrial city in northern Minas Gerais, looking for work. In the five to six block region where she found a job, near Rua São Paulo and Rua Guaicurus, roughly twenty dilapidated hotels with nondescript entryways essentially operate as brothels. These establishments, some with ironic names such as Brilliant Hotel, Imperial Palace and Marvelous Hotel, have been operating for decades. While heavy traffic passes here daily, many people have little clue of the business going on inside these buildings. Prostitutes working at these hotels pay management daily rent in exchange for confining, unadorned rooms. Day and night (8:00 am until 11:30 pm), men circulate throughout these hotels, peeking through open doorways, in search of sexual encounters. If one assumes an average of fifteen to twenty prostitutes per hotel, then approximately 300 to 400 girls work in the area on any given day. Girls in this region tend to cater to clients with lower incomes from poorer areas of the city and generally charge a basic rate of $2 to $6 per trick (US dollar equivalent, mid-2005). In Carol’s case, she charges her clients a basic rate of merely $2 per trick for shorter, routine sessions. On the expense side of the equation, she pays Prive Hotel a daily room rate of $13 and incurs expenses for condoms and paper towels. In other words, she needs to turn at least seven basic tricks per day to break even.
Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2005
Carol’s Parents (Grandparents)
I was raised by my grandmother and my grandfather, only it’s like this, I am their adopted child. I never knew my mom nor my dad. According to the story that my grandmother tells me, when I was seven days old my biological mother wanted to throw me in the river. My grandmother was passing, saw the scene and decided to take me. It’s like this, I would have died. My grandparents were born in a small city called Potema, near Teofilo Otoni. Later they moved to Valadares and married. My grandfather worked, works to this day with stones, precious stones. He prospects there at Pico de Ipicuruna.
Work on the Farm
I had dreams. I dreamed of becoming a model because I am tall and slender. My God, my being so skinny frustrated my grandfather because I worked on the farm. I studied during the morning, finished at noon, would go home to change my clothes, eat lunch and then would go to the farm. We pulled these weeds which cows could not eat, otherwise they would die. We stayed out there from one in the afternoon until four thirty trying to pull these weeds with deep roots, understand? It’s like this, you stay out there for this long time and I was so skinny. I couldn’t manage the hoe, it was heavy for me. While one person was pulling two, three weeds, I still didn’t have a single one. When I arrived at home around five in the afternoon, my grandmother commented to my grandfather that I didn’t manage very well. He beat me with an armadillo tail, which is a whip that you use when you ride an ass. That’s it… a horse, donkey, ass. There is a whip used to hit them, and he beat me with this and my other siblings, understand? I couldn’t manage, for real, because the roots of this plant were very deep. He beat me and the next day I arrived at school all bruised. No one could understand and I didn’t give a true explanation. I said I had fallen off my bike, had fallen down, understand? I never told what happened because I couldn’t… because I liked my grandparents a lot. From the day that they said that I was their adoptive child, I always put them in the heavens.
Memory from Middle School
During the time when I studied, Father’s and Mother’s Day, you had parents for real and I had my grandmother and grandfather, who are not my real grandparents by blood. Damn, this hurt me a lot! When I was studying in middle school, I remember that there was a party for Father’s Day and a classmate turned to me and said: “My God, it must be embarrassing, right?”
I said, “What?”
“Everyone here has a father. You don’t have a dad, you have grandparents but they are not your grandparents. It must be upsetting, right?”
Damn, that hurt me too much. Too much, too much, too much…
Carol’s Relationship with Her Parents
I speak with my grandmother, I never manage to speak with my grandfather… it’s around seven years more or less. He gave me affection, love, education… until I became pregnant, when I was 24 years old. He always was strict and this city, Potema, is deep in the country, so people are very rigid there. It is like this: if a girl gets pregnant, she has to get married. During the time that I became pregnant it was like this, an adventure. I did not want to tell my father that I was pregnant, and after three months I started to feel sick and I told my grandmother that I thought I was pregnant. She asked me to take an exam, it returned positive and she told him. He gave me a thrashing, he hit me even though I was pregnant and expelled me from the house. I went to live with a colleague, who was a close friend. So then, I miss sitting in my dad’s lap, feeling the love of a father, understand? It’s so much so that I tell people I think I am very needy of affection, a big crybaby, because this is missing. Because it is very painful, even more so for a woman.
When I call there, like last Sunday, I called and asked, “And dad? How is he?”
She said, “Ah, your grandfather is well.”
“Ah, let me speak with him!”
She passed the telephone to him, only he didn’t want to speak with me. What I most ask of God, more than anything else… everyday I pray for him to at least one day speak with me before he dies. He already is 72 years old. I ask God that at least before my grandfather dies that he forgives me, because in his mind it’s like this: if you get pregnant, you have to get married. And how I didn’t tell who was the father of my child, it’s that story: “My daughter, she is not worth anything.” He went as far as to tell me one day, “You are not worth anything from this day onward. As of today you no longer have my blessing, as of today you died.”
The Fathers of Carol’s Children
So I had my first child, but it didn’t work out with the guy I was with, I never even saw him again… he went to Portugal. I tried to get in touch with him and nothing. I entered into contact with his parents, but he does not help me out with anything. Then I got pregnant again, it didn’t work out, and that is that. I think like this: for a relationship, the first thing you have to have is respect. This person was very jealous of me. He didn’t have respect. When we went out, he didn’t know how to dance and I couldn’t dance with anyone. I sat at the table with him—I love dancing—and he wouldn’t let me dance with anyone. I stayed inside the house and if I said I was going to the bakery to buy bread he had to go with me; wherever I went he had to go with me. Over time, I was feeling imprisoned. It’s like this, as if I was living in a cage. I decided, thought it was better, to separate. He accepted it at the beginning, but later insisted that we get back together, only I think like this: it didn’t work out the first time, it’s not going to work out the second and not even the third. And it remains like that until this day, only he has helped out a lot.
Carol’s Children
One is five years old and the other is two years and eight months. They are both men. They are everything. Everything that I do is for them, if I am in this today it’s for them. My God! Children are the best thing that God put in this world. Damn, there’s that hour when I arrive at home and I arrive like this: tired, stressed out and I am not bringing home much money. I arrive at home and they are so sweet with me, damn, they… my God, it’s really good! My two young sons are everything for me in life.
Hunger
People lining up for fruits and vegetables thrown out by a market in downtown Belo Horizonte.
Before I came here, I suffered from hunger. There is a neighborhood there near my house that is called Ceasa. It is where they sell wholesale vegetables, these things. It’s an enormous place that sells vegetables from the farm, and people go there to make purchases. I would go there to search for rotten vegetables. It’s like this, rotten carrots… you go there, remove the rotten parts, put them in the sun to dry and later eat them. I once passed a situation where my kids didn’t have anything to eat, I went to Ceasa and couldn’t find anything… my heart wrenched.
Arrival, Prive Hotel
Why did I come here? Expenses at home. It was a colleague of mine, my neighbor, who works at another hotel down there. She turned to me and said, because my rent was already one month late, “Why not try it? It’s possible to earn a good amount of money.” So I came. The first day was a failure, I did not know how to do anything. It is a prostitute. I never did this before. I never dreamed of doing something like this. When someone commented about something like this to me, I was against it. I reproached it. I reproached it, I was against it before I worked here. Still, to find another job, I need someone to recommend me. Understand? For example, if I arrive at your house and say, “Young man, let me work in your home,” you are going to say it’s not possible, you don’t know me. Now, if someone arrives who is close to you and says, “Look, I have a good girl, she cooks, washes, cleans house well,” you already will go, “Then call the girl, I will speak with her to see if we understand one another.”
I needed money, I have to pay rent. It’s so much so that one day a truck passed selling fruits and vegetables and my son wanted an apple. I was without a single penny, without money. And, damn, my colleague turned and told me this… I thought I will try, I am not going to let my sons lack things and not have money. I never worked at a nightclub, I only work at the hotel because in the case of a club it is more at night and I have to be with my children at that time. I say really, by the end of the year I don’t want to be here, no. If I stay here I will lose my identity. There are women who have worked here for 20 years or longer.
The Money
My first day was terrible! I left with R$5 (US dollar equivalent of roughly $2 at mid-year 2005). Fine, per day I leave with R$30 to R$40 (US $13 to $17). I have to pay a daily rate, paper towels, food, condoms… the daily rate is R$30. I have to perform six tricks at R$5 to cover the daily rate… just to stay here. I usually leave with R$30 to R$40 above the costs for the daily room rate, paper towels, condoms. But for me it’s good. It’s like this, I do R$80, R$40 is for them and R$40 is mine. I perform more or less 10 to 15 tricks per day, only sometimes a guy arrives and wants to chat, gives you money, talks with you, you say something, he leaves.
Entrance to Prive Hotel
During Christmas season one of my colleagues told me that it is a non-stop coming and going of many men. It’s like this, you don’t have time to breathe. You enter the room with one man and you leave and already there are two, three waiting. One leaves, another enters. Understand? The best time for us to make money is November and December. It’s possible to take home R$1,000 per month (US $425). You make a little decorated box for Christmas and some people who do a trick, put an extra tip in the little box. Sometimes I leave with nothing. You pay your daily room rate and leave. If you are owing your daily room rate, the next day you can’t work. I work everyday besides Tuesday and on average earn almost two wages, or R$540 per month (US $230)(1). There is no way to save money because I have two children. I spend on milk, diapers… It’s like this, in one week my rent is due… I pay the owner a quarter of my monthly salary. But I like here. Although they stress me out a lot, I like them.
HIV
For sure I am afraid. The hotel here, every month you have to take an exam and give it to them. Every month a doctor of the firm comes to perform exams. It’s like this, it happens. It never happened to me, no, but it already has happened with some of the women: the condom tears, the woman gets anxious, stressed, understand? They have the test and every 5th day of the month they collect blood. They do everything, every three months they do that business that collects samples from the uterus.
The Clients
Some treat me well and some with disrespect. You interact with many types of people… people who are tyrants, people with good hearts, people who aren’t worth anything, who believe that because they are paying they can enter here and ride you like a donkey. I say it like this: have sex with you like a donkey and, done, finished. They are paying you, so you have an obligation to do that, understand? It’s like this, you have some who pass here by the door and say, “What a slender woman! What a skinny woman! What an ugly woman!” I say, “If I am ugly, what are you doing here now? Your woman must be beautiful if you are in the district!” But good people also exist, those who enter and sometimes don’t even have sex with you, they just chat. They have problems at home or are without work, and arrive here, talk, know that you are a cool person, arrive here chat, open up… understand?
The Drunk
The worst thing was one time a guy wanted to do a trick that lasted a half hour and I charged R$50. Only, as he was drunk, he couldn’t get an erection. A half hour passed and he turned to me and said that he wouldn’t pay. Damn, I was furious! I pressed that alarm, this here is an alarm to call the managers. Ten minutes passed and the managers didn’t come. Damn, I was worn out, I said, “Fine, since he isn’t going to pay me, he also isn’t going to stay.” As I was very furious, very angry, I picked him up and threw him out. I worked in the other hallway, in front there is a fire extinguisher. He hit his head on the extinguisher and hurt his head and started to bleed. And as I can’t bear to see blood, my pressure fell that instant and I started to feel sick. I felt terrible, terrible! I went home. I stayed a couple of days home inside the house without working. It was terrible because I never did this to anyone and I put myself in that person’s place: damn, if someone did this to me I would be devastated, understand?
The Boyfriend
A girl worked here and her boyfriend didn’t know that she was a prostitute. It’s like this, he saw her by the door, only I think she didn’t notice it was him. A guy entered to have sex with her, and what happened? The boyfriend started to punch the door, it’s the last door over there, he punched the door until the door broke down, and then he took her and hit her excessively. She went to the emergency room from how much he hit her.
The Husband
I had one who wanted to separate from his wife. He commented to me that he arrived tired from work, his wife started to curse him, and he went to a small bar to drink. I turned to him and said, like, “Look, why don’t you do this? Damn, invite your wife to go out on the weekend, if she likes forro take her to dance, if she likes bars, take her to a little bar, go to a pagode, go out with her, go to motel to make love. (2)(3)” Because I think like this, for the marriage to end, it’s because the husband lets a lot become routine, he thinks I am married, end of story: the women needs to stay there in the house. It’s not like this.
After a few weeks he reappeared and said, like, “Damn, Carol, you, huh? Today I am not going to do anything. Really, I am not going to do a trick today.”
I asked, “Why?”
“Because things are going better with my wife. I am going to give you R$10, later I’ll come back.”
I said, “Ah, okay.”
“No, but thanks a lot. I went out with my wife and, my God, she liked it a lot. Now I arrive at home and it’s a little love here, a little love there.”
But it’s like that, the husband lets things become too routine, you know? The life of a couple can’t be like that. Each day that passes you have to seduce one another as if you were dating. If you argued yesterday, today arrive at home with a bouquet of roses, the wife loves this. Or buy some jewelry. It doesn’t have to be gold, or nothing, a small gift is enough.
But, let me tell you, I did my good deed, because imagine if he had separated. His youngest son is six years old, his son is super close to him. Who would suffer? The son!
The Future.
I think like this: before I die, I think of leaving a roof here for my kids. A house, understand? These days I think more for my children, my dreams are more for my kids. By the end of the year I want to find an honest job or return to my city (4).
« end »
Please feel free to comment on Carol’s story.
Footnotes:
(1) Approximately $2,760 per year, based on an exchange rate of R$2.35/US$1.00.
(2) Forro is a style of music and dance that originates in northeast Brazil.
(3) Pagode is a type of samba music; also refers to a party at which this music is played.
(4) At the end of 2005, Carol still worked at Prive Hotel.