Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [83]
“No, Margaret. If she does, she needs to learn alone and not within
Bahia Street. It’s not just me, but everyone.
“While Eduardo was here,” she continued, “we all went for lunch together to talk about the selection of the girls for next year. At the end of the lunch, Mary protested when we started to pay, saying that Bahia Street should pay for all our lunches. I said no, that we had no money, and that we could not be using Bahia Street money for lunch. She turned to Madalena and told her that in the NGOs where she had worked before, this is how it was always done and she was sure Bahia Street had plenty of money to pay for these things. Eduardo said that this was not the case and that we were not some big group, that this was a project of all of us, not the States and us in a different group. But Madalena looked troubled. Mary intimated that Madalena was being cheated. Things with Madalena were bad before, but now they’re worse.”
“What’s wrong with Madalena? I thought she was being fantastic with the girls.”
“In many ways she is, but she won’t work with me. She wants only to talk with you or Eduardo. She won’t show me the class grades, says we should wait until you or Eduardo comes and she will share them with you, then you decide what I get to see. It’s straight prejudice. Exactly what we’re trying to change, we have in the middle of our own program.”
Despair settled over me like a suffocating blanket. I realized I was angry—at myself, at Rita, at nothing, just angry. Nothing I could think to say sounded helpful. “Oh, Rita, it sounds awful,” I finally murmured.
“I can blame everyone else and everything,” Rita said, “but I have to learn too, I suppose, to be a director even when I feel intimidated by whites or arrogant middle-class foreigners.” She shoved her cup aside. “And there’s more.”
“Please, no.” I shook my head and waved to Reinaldo. “Reinaldo! Could you please get us two more coffees? I think we need them.”
Reinaldo bustled in our direction. “Boyfriend trouble?”
“I wish. Boyfriend trouble would be better.”
“No, the only thing worse than boyfriend trouble is girlfriend trouble!” He placed our fresh coffees in front of us and hurried away.
“It’s the space,” Rita said. The room we were borrowing we only had because the director of the building was a relative of Eduardo’s. She’d graciously let us use the upper floor of their building since we’d begun. “I think she wants us out.” I stopped stirring my coffee. “I think when she agreed to let us use the space, she assumed that you and Eduardo were in charge. I don’t think she can cope with the idea that I, a black favela woman, could be running it here. She keeps asking when you or Eduardo are coming back. She keeps telling us to keep the girls quiet. They are trying to run an office below us. But the other day, one of her assistants asked if the girls have lice.”
“They might.”
Rita laughed. “All kids get lice at some time. The issue is that they don’t want favela kids in their building unless they are supervised by a middle-class director who will make sure they behave and don’t steal anything.”
“They’re just little kids!”
“Margaret,” Rita said. “Don’t play naive. I can’t blame her in some ways. After all she’s responsible for the space. She doesn’t know me, only Eduardo. Why should she trust me?”
“She doesn’t know me any better than she knows you,” I said. “Why should she trust me either?”
“Be real, Margaret. You’re a white, middle-class foreigner with a Ph.D.”
My stomach hurt.
I arranged to meet Mary in the upper praça of Pelourinho. The praça was being renovated. All the large shade trees had already been cut and the old mosaics dug up and carted away. As a part of the renovation, one section had been excavated as an archaeological dig and the findings left