Land of opportunity

I have been on vacation this weekend, which I am never naiive enough to enjoy. I went determined to discover the joys of New Englandish carelessness in the Can-American peninsula of Maine. It seemed a shame to miss the leaves turn in the leaf-turning capital of the world when I was so close. I mean, it was either that or Florida, and I figured since Florida is nice all year round and since I have lived Florida sufficiently through countless episodes of Miami Vice, I should give something else a try. (That's the same reason that I drive a Lincoln and not a Ferrari.)

Anyways, while en route I also stopped by to meet some family in Massachusetts and found pretty much everything that I was looking for in Maine. The weather was beautiful, the fall colors were vibrant, and the sidewalks were not hidden by splotches of chewed gum. We went for a walk in the woods with their dogs (neither of which have names worth trying to pronounce, let alone spell) that would have made any transcendentalist proud. Well maybe except for Thoreau because he was a hack. A big fat hack. And he couldn't build a house that would last long enough for the emminent rush of tourists to ogle. It was the perfect day (plus a couple of hours) of the anti-Times Square.

But during my stay, the cleaning ladies came to clean. That's what they do best, you know. Turns out that they were Brazilians, which makes me happy because I will find any excuse to practice my Portuguese. (Well, more accurately, I am always looking for easy ways to impress people, such as speaking in Portuguese. Really not that impressive, I guess, when it is something that hundreds of millions of people can already do. Regardless, please forgive my selfishness.) After speaking to them for a while, I asked if they were here with their families.

The two women, it turns out, are sisters, and they live with their other two sisters who also clean houses. So the four of them, and all of their four spouses live together. Probably not the ideal conditions, but certainly livable. So eight people under the same roof is nothing to complain about, right? And cleaning for a living isn't a bad way to live. I even envy the guy at work who gets to run the floor waxer. But these poor women.

They left their children--one left 4, the other 2--all under the age of 12 back in Minas Gerais, a state in northern Brazil. They had not seen them for three years, during the time they have spent here cleaning houses. Now I don't have kids (none that I have made public, at least), but I can't imagine how a mother's heart must hurt as she cleans houses of families that have everything (and often take it for granted, I am sure) as she thinks of her children thousands of miles away who have nothing.

Damn those selfish good-for-nothing immigrants.