Unmentionables

Ok, so I held up a certain piece of underwear last week and asked my houseworker what it is called in Portuguese and she said, roughly translated, "boob keeper." I won't post a photo, for which I am sure you are all grateful. This is a "PG" site. I almost choked, and then burst into laughter. Kevin, who was also standing there, went off into gales of laughter. She looked a little embarrassed but also giggled. Now, the REAL word in Continental Portuguese is "Soutien", which is very lovely. But here is is called that other thing, and that is pretty typical. The Portuguese which is spoken here is nothing if not functional. Entire classes of verbs have been eliminated (which means we spent a lot of time mastering something that isn't used here. Well, we never did master it. We poked around its edges.)

People who come here from Brazil can find themselves shocked at the difference in words. There are different names for men's and ladies' underwear there than in Continental Portuguese, and more of the CP words are used here. They have to be careful, or they will end up calling men's underwear "panties" by accident. The kind of thing to make you chuckle.

But seriously, we are surrounded by mammary glands here. it was rather shocking when we first arrived. There are no pacifiers, and so babies go for the real thing. Moms just pull down the neckline of their shirts, grab ahold of it and pull it out. This goes on up to two years old. Sometimes you are talking to someone and there it is, hanging there. Having nursed two babies myself I can cope with this while feeling vaguely uncomfortable, but I'm sure that western men really struggle. Kevin has adjusted really well, but often feels that he OUGHT to look away from the woman in question. But in reality it is just considered normal here and it would be rude to look in the other direction while talking to someone! Ladies walking down the street, baby strapped to the front, nursing away, it happens all the time. I told a friend that in America you'd get arrested for walking around with your boobs hanging out, and she about fell over laughing. Funny thing is, it is terribly shocking to lift up your shirt and expose any part of your midriff. Tummy is totally off limits here, but boobage is normal.

Actually though, the constant nursing of the babies is really good for them. Diarrhea is a terrible, terrible problem here and without this constant nutrition we'd see death rates much higher. Did you know that some years ago formula companies tried to convince Africans that they should give bottles, not nurse? I wonder how many babies died as a result. Few people have access to good clean water here, and it is not safe to give local water from the tap to young babies. So now we see signs all over the place encouraging women to nurse their babies. Very few could afford to pay for formula anyway, but there was a belief for awhile that formula was BETTER for babies than breastmilk. All this nursing creates an interesting societal dynamic, though. It means that women simply can't get away from those babies unless they are able to shift feedings somehow to further apart. It means that there are babies in all the church services, and all the women's meetings, and things are a lot more "exciting" and noisy. Babies are brought everywhere, carried on their mother's back on front in a type of sling made by a piece of material. I was at the central hospital yesterday with a friend and her baby and they were everywhere! - Cami