Martha

        My first friend in my new home. I was there for her 15th birthday, but here 15 is as old or older than I am. Families started at that age and younger are so common that I have to fight every day not to become desensitized. Some are wanted families, of course, but to distinguish between the forced and the eager can be difficult.

        Martha married - or rather, eloped - when newly 14. She didn’t have an actual wedding; not many do, especially in the rural areas.  But she moved in with her husband’s family, and was intimate with this boy, and that is the same thing.  She cared deeply for her partner, and was well loved by her mother-in-law, the boy’s grandmother, and her sister-in-law. They live on a coffee farm a mile and a half outside of town. Every day Martha walked to my home and spent the day from 6am until 6pm running around the house doing whatever she was called upon to do. Cook, clean, hold the baby, go buy rice, and cheese, clean, hold this other baby, sort the beans, clean again. She eats separately from the family, as is the custom here. She does not make very much money, considering her work; 650 Córdoba a month.  Roughly $25.50.

          She is smart. So smart. She was studying accounting on Sundays at the high school. She quit going to normal high school, because her beloved refused to give her any of the money he made, and didn’t want her going to school, anyhow. She was to be an Ama de Casa now.

         She would practice her English with me. To this day she is one of the only dedicated English learners I have come into contact with. She loves English, and she is good at it. She has an incredibly clear accent and an amazing memory. Shameless delight crossed her face whenever we were able to steal a few minutes together and chat, an exchange of language and laughter. Her smile reveals dimples and she has a tall, lean frame, soft skin and black hair that ends just past her shoulders which she wears down much of the time; a styling choice not made by many women.

         There was a time, after she stopped working in my house, when every time I saw her she was several pounds lighter. The thinness of her eyebrows paralleled. I commented on her disappearing waistline, the quickly lessening circumference of her arms. She said she thought she was pregnant. She prayed for pregnancy, she thought that would be her savior, her sunrise at the end of a dark and aimless walk.  She thought her husband would love her, then. He would bring her into his arms and kiss her forehead and love her.  A friend cannot say to another friend that a baby will not fix a broken marriage.  A friend can only be there to listen to the story of how he ignored her again, how he was drunk again and yelling again.      



        When she finally left the loveless farm, went back to her mother’s home, and went back to high school, she started to gain the weight back. Now every time you see her she looks healthier. Like the first time you met her, in the bright kitchen, and you were the one with sad and lost eyes.  She smiles her joyful smile, as she did then, and she gives you some of the courage with which she is filled.