Immigrant Voices Podcast Project

Aleide from Brazil

September 14, 2021 Deborah Season 4 Episode 16
Immigrant Voices Podcast Project
Aleide from Brazil
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Curious to experience life abroad and improve their finances, Aleide and her husband Adson—whose interview was one of the first in this series—decided to emigrate to the United States from Brazil in 2007. Their twin daughters were in college, old enough to take care of themselves, and so the couple's living-abroad-adventure began. Filled with an entrepreneurial streak, Aleide soon started her own house cleaning business endearing herself to clients who quickly became her friends. Despite the strong roots the couple grew during their fourteen years in the U.S., their hearts were pulling them back to Brazil. This interview is in two parts. Aleide’s life here in Boston and then just a few days before her tear-filled departure back to her homeland. The flute music you hear in the background is by Aleide’s devoted husband, Adson. 

Guest Intro/00:38

Curious to experience life abroad and improve their financial life, Aleide and her husband Adson—whose interview was one of the first in this series—decided to emigrate to the United States from Brazil in 2007. Their twin daughters were in college, old enough to take care of themselves, and so the couple’s living abroad adventure began. Filled with an entrepreneurial streak, Aleide soon started her own house cleaning business endearing herself to clients who quickly became her friends. Despite the strong roots, the couple grew during their fourteen years in the U.S.; their hearts were pulling them back to Brazil. This interview is in two parts. Aleide’s life here in Boston and then just a few days before her tear-filled departure back to her homeland. The flute music you hear in the background is by Aleide’s devoted husband, Adson.

Coming to the U.S./01:50

Deborah: My next guest is Aleide from Brazil who’s been in this country for how many years now? 

Aleide: Almost thirteen. 

Deborah: And tell me, Aleide, why did you come here? What were the reasons that brought you to the United States?

Aleide: Well, I was forty-six when I came to this country. I wanted to live abroad in another country so at first I thought I’d love to go to Europe. To Portugal. Or the whole Europe. Go through. I didn’t have the money to just travel so I had to think about a place where I could work and it would be easy to start to make some money. So definitely USA the best country in the world to make easy money. 

Deborah: That’s what you thought.

Aleide: Not easy. You work a lot. But you know if you work the money comes. So we had some friends here so we came. I was very stressed. I had a small business in Brazil and I was so stressed with everything and I wanted to go away. Go out. So we came here. We have two daughters. They are twins. When we came, they were 21. They were already in college. So I said to my husband, “I think we can go. It will be fine.” I wouldn’t want to leave them if they were too young over there. So that’s why I came because I want to live another country. And the USA would make it possible.

Deborah: Was it difficult to come here? Did you have, was it hard to get a visa or what? What were the steps? 

Aleide: Oh yeah. I said to Adson, my husband. Let’s go to USA. He said, “I don’t want to go! Don’t want to go!” The life was easier for him than to me because he wasn’t working in our company any more. He was working different things, cultural staging. He used to work with the city hall with events. Shows. So he used to be a lot out. But I was very stressed. And he said, “Go provide all the documents. Make the appointments at the consulate and I’ll go with you.” So I went. I prepared all the documents, went to the consulate in Rio de Janeiro. We lived in Espirito Santo. Rio de Janeiro was six hours away driving from my city. So we drove there and then they gave us for one year. We had one year to travel here. So to come. Then we decided and I went home. Now you have to go. We lived our company from seven years. We make and live from this company.

Deborah: What kind of business was it?

Aleide: T shirts silkscreening factory. We used to do both. Silk screening for other companies and at stores that sell clothes. We would print their clothes. We raised our daughters. It was doing well. It was fine. But it was enough. It wasn’t bad. My life in Brazil. We had a house. Car. Our daughters were in college. We didn’t miss anything. It was fine. 

Deborah: You said you were stressed.

Aleide: I was very stressed. Sometimes we had twelve employees. I didn’t want to run a company any more. I was forty-six. I said if I don’t go now, I’ll never go to stay abroad. Not just to come for a visit, I wanted to live here. So that’s why I said, I have to go now. I’m forty-six. I can’t wait anymore. Of course, in the beginning, I didn’t have this impact. People here they don’t throw trash on the street. I didn’t do this in Brazil. I never threw out the window my garbage. And when I walked my dogs, I would pick up after them. I didn’t have this conflict. Some people say they have this conflict because things are very strict. The laws. The rules so I didn’t have a problem to adapt to this but it was different. 

Adapting and  Finding work/07:50

Deborah: What was the biggest challenge?

Aleide: The biggest challenge was to adaptation. When I thought about my city, it was so far away. So hard. It hurts. So and then I started to look for a job. I started to clean house. After a month it was here I did some jobs in between to make some money. I started to work helping someone. It was hard. I wasn’t used to cleaning houses. 

Deborah: You didn’t want to clean?

Aleide: I wasn’t used to cleaning houses. I used to clean my own house. Not like that. Oh my God my hands! I couldn’t close my hands open. It hurts a lot. Can you believe, I lost 30 pounds in three months. So it was everything. The work was is  hard. I’m still doing the same thing. And I came home and I set myself on the bed and stay there like half hour, not move for a half hour. Don’t move. 

Deborah: Did you have second thoughts? Did, did you think, “I should never have come?”

Aleide: No, never, never, Deborah. Never. I sick myself. I said to myself no way I’m here. I don’t want to go home right now. 

Deborah: So what happened when the visa was up? 

Aleide: When the visa was up I was illegal. Life was still the same. Nothing changed. I never had a problem with immigration. Never. 

Deborah: Were you afraid about it?

Aleide: When I started to drive, then yes. One year and a half we didn’t have a car. I started to drive one year and six months after I came. That’s when I started my own business. I started to have my own clients. So then I needed a car. We got a very old car and I started to drive. I drove in Brazil so I knew how to drive. So cautious. Never pass the limit. Many times. You have to go on. I’m here so I have to keep going.

Starting a Business/11:17

Deborah: Was there a particular day or experience you had that made you decide “I’m going to start my own business? This is it.” Sometimes there’s like one event that happens and you say “I’ve had it now I’m going to start running business.” Was there? Tell me what about that day? 

Aleide:  Actually, many times I thought about giving up. I don’t want to clean house any more. I want to go different. I want to talk to people because when you work for someone else, you just follow these people you just say “Hi” and “Bye” and you make so few money you know. So and you work a lot. And sometimes—working as a cleaner is so hard; it is so hard. It is hard. I like what I do. Since I started to do my own houses, my own clients, I like what I do. I like to make people happy. I really like what I do. 

Deborah: But what was there one day you said, “This is it. I’m going to do it!”? 

Aleide: Actually, I said after one year and a half, “I have to make more money. I have to make things easier to myself” because working as a helper is hard, Deborah. I know people who clean like ten houses in a day. Two or three people. You have to be so fast. I’m sure they don’t do a good job. You don’t have time to do a good job. So I said, “I have to start to make my own business. To do my own cleaning” and then I said when I got a chance for one client so I said, “I’m gonna jump in! If I don’t get this chance, maybe it will never happen.” Because if you doing something. I was making so little money. Some weeks, I said “Oh my God!” But then I start to work for myself, help someone as well, so then started to come more business, more business. 

Deborah: Who was your first, client?

Aleide: I’m still working for her today thirteen years later. She was a woman in Newton.

Deborah: How did you find her?

Aleide:  Someone told me, “Someone needs a cleaning.” So I went there. A friend of mine said she used to work for someone else. Just one person. It was twice a week which was good. Twice a week. So then I started to go and she referred me to more and more and more and that’s how everything starts.

Deborah: Do you like being your own boss? 

Aleide: Oh yeah. Is much easier, in this case. I was boss in Brazil. I used to be a boss. I have sometimes so many employees it’s hard; it’s so here I was my own boss. I knew was doing, I didn’t have a complaint, you know, no complaints, nothing. So when I left so I came home, I was everything fine. I knew I had done everything well, so no complaints, you know. I came home tired, but I was like, you know what I mean? 

Deborah: You’re tired, but not the other tired. 

Aleide: Yeah. So I said, I came when I came to home, I was my mind was fine you know. I wasn’t too stressful either. I was tired. I wasn’t stressed at all. 

Deciding to Stay/15:57

Deborah:  What are the things about living in the United States that convinced you and your husband why you wanted to stay?

Aleide: Well, since I was here, we broke our lives in Brazil. Since we were here so we had to make money. And save money and send money to Brazil. We bought another apartment. We bought a small place with land. That’s where we’re going to live when I get there. The whole time, the thought was go back to Brazil. Not live here forever. I had all my life in Brazil. Forty-six years in Brazil. All my roots were there. You know when you get old, you think about what? You always remember when you were young, right? Like when the kids were little so the friends you have. I miss friends from Brazil. We never really made friends here. We have acquaintances, but friends, friends, no. Sometimes it takes your whole life to make a bunch of friends, right? So you have friends when our kids were little. And now they are all grown up. They are in college. You know. I miss being in touch with these people again and going to events. Performances together. 

Deborah: Does the technology today, like WhatsApp and FaceTime help? 

Aleide: Oh helps yeah, yeah, sure. When we came in we actually just talked to my daughter once a week. We had to buy cards. So was it took us seven months to have our first cell phone. So and there’s smartphone. I just had a like it six years later. So, but yeah, it was now it’s easy. I talk to my mom, I talk to my sister, talk to my other daughter in Brazil every day, every day. Sometimes in the morning when I have my breakfast we talk. We almost we have our breakfast together, right?

Deborah: That’s sweet.

Aleide: Yeah. At this time, in the quarantine, more right. Helps every day.  

Deborah: Did you bring anything with you from Brazil that you still have some little objects, maybe something in here that you carried in your pocketbook in your pocket or some little thing that you still have?

Aleide: I have some not real jewelry, some earrings, some clothes. Fourteen years later I still have some clothes from Brazil. 

Deborah: Did you have hobbies in Brazil? I know you were busy with your business, but growing up, did you have other interests? 

Aleide: You know, I’m the kind of person I don’t have hobbies. I don’t have hobbies.

Deborah: You said you liked the mandalas, coloring them. 

Aleide: I love them. I used to have a big one, a painting, one house, a friend of us paint them. I do like those, but I never made one or I don’t know. 

Personal Growth/20:050

Deborah: So based on your experience and the knowledge you have now, what, one thing you wish you could have changed before you came. Knowing what you know now, is there some something one thing?

Aleide: Nothing. I changed a lot. I changed it because you don’t even know the country. I know I changed some way. But I think my essential is to the same. I’m the same person. Always I liked to watch documentaries, to know about the history. I like history. 

Deborah: What’s the hardest thing about being separated from your daughters? I know one of them is here in the states and Mariana’s here.

Aleide: Yeah. And now it is we stay five years without seeing them. Then we didn’t see them, just talk on the phone. Now it’s much easier. Mariana is here and the other one comes often. She comes like two sometimes three times a year. That’s great. She comes like for twenty days, fifteen days or ten days. And it’s nice. It’s nice. Yeah. 

Future Dreams/21:29

Deborah: So aside from the American dream, what human dreams have you had for yourself and what, what do you feel that you’ve accomplished? What are your dreams today for yourself and your business? That’s a lot of questions.

Aleide: Well, Deborah. I want to retire. I want to be free. I want to go, I want to go back to Brazil. To see my mom who is ninety-three and I don’t want to work hard like I’m working right now is to work. I’m almost fifty-nine and my dream is being in Brazil next year by January next year. I want to be in Brazil because I can’t live here and not to be able to go back and forth. 

Deborah: Do you have any hope of becoming a citizen here so you could go back and forth? 

Aleide: No. That is no way to become a citizen here. If I had, if there was a chance, I would just stay more longer here. But now, and after this pandemic, I realized that why am I here working, working, working, working. I’m you’re fifty nine. How long I have to live? So I feel this, that I have to stop. I want to stop. I’m not saying that I’m not going to work at all. I will find something to do. I’m not like now that I work every day six o’clock in the morning I get up. Yeah. Go work. I come home six or seven. 

During Covid/23:26

Deborah: Even during the pandemic?

Aleide: No. Not now this days. No, but it’s not the same, you know, you are not on vacation. You always have to think about money, money, money. So how I’m gonna pay my bills if I’m not working?

Deborah: So you are doing some now? 

Aleide: Now I am doing some work. Some people are coming back. I’m resuming. So in the meantime, some clients were still paying me and others I was doing shopping for them instead of cleaning. They used, they pay me the same to two times a week I go to the supermarket.

Deborah: Do you leave the food on the doorstep or do you go inside their houses? 

Aleide: No I don’t go inside their house. I leave it inside the garage. And the two others I leave on the back porch, then they grab it. So but I risk going to the supermarket. But I have to keep my income.

Deborah: You keep earning some money. 

Aleide: Yes. 

Deborah: Is there anything else you want to tell me about anything? What was the biggest struggle about being in United States in the whole time, since you came in 2007, like 2007 to 2020; and what stands out as the biggest struggle and what stands out as the biggest success?

Learning English/25:14

Aleide: The biggest struggle was being out of my country for so long. It’s hard, many times you cried. And what’s good that I could make enough money to my retirement, but to help a lot, make possible to me go back to Brazil. And living in another country always just is good. You see things, you learn the thing, I learned in English. So I’m not proficient at all, but I can communicate that very nice.

Deborah: You do very very well.

Aleide:  I loved that. I loved that. I couldn’t live here for thirteen years not being able to speak. No. How would you be very upset to myself? So angry to myself. I know people that they live here fourteen years, twenty years, thirty years, they don’t speak. Or when they speak, they don’t know what they are speaking. If they see written somewhere, they don’t know, they don’t write and they don’t read. They just speak of people sixty years. They don’t, they don’t know. So I would never forgive myself if I had to learn.

Deborah: So you should feel proud of that, for sure.

Aleide: Yeah, I am, I am. I know young people, they are here like four or five years and they don’t speak English yet. Why you don’t? So I came was forty-six. So, and I learned also I want. Right. So that’s, I think that’s, the big thing if you want what I do. When I have my clients, we talk about everything and I like to talk to express myself. So I’m not just a, housecleaner. Right. I just said I’m not just a housecleaner, I’m more than that. So then able to show them that I was more than just a housecleaner.

Deborah: You have a very active mind and imagination. I’ve been able to observe. 

Aleide: Yeah, I think so. I am very proud of myself. What I got. I keep all my clients. When you talk, it’s making me very happy, but you talk to, but I know most of them just clean the house because they don’t talk to their clients. They just go in. But I talk to them. I talk a lot. I talk about everything. That’s what makes what I liked. Talk about the ideas about politicians, music, history, you know, so I, I was very proud of it. Well, myself. 

Deborah: It sounds like clients have become your friends more than just acquaintances. 

Aleide: They are. I have one client special that I go to the performances with them because they know I like blues, jazz, so they ask me to go, so we go. So it’s very nice. When my daughter was sick in Brazil, my client offered to bring her here. She said to me, “I will pay everything. Don’t worry about money. You don’t have to pay me back.” So one of them she told me, “What am I going to do? What am I going to do about you?” Usually I said, “Guys I’m gonna leave. I have to go back.” They cried. No no, it’s not because like Mariana jokes she is like me she likes to joke she likes to talk. I’m not to flatter myself. Someone knows you are smart. You are just a house cleaner? I said, “No don’t worry she knows.” She said to us another time, “You are smart people.” 

Deborah: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with me, Aleide. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you

Aleide: Thank you Deborah.

Deborah: And learning a little bit more about you tonight,with this conversation. And I have a dream for you and Adson that you will have a miraculous way to become a citizen, so you can go back and forth. 

Aleide: We will need a miracle.

Deborah: Who knows? Maybe there’ll be an administrative change and maybe. 

Aleide: I don’t think it’s going to change. 

Deborah: Trump is going to get in?

Aleide: I think he’s going to be re-elected. 

Deborah: Thank you very much for this conversation. 

Aleide: Thank you. And I’m very glad to meet people like you, like Erica, like Michelle. I’m very happy to have been those that school at GPA. 

Deborah: How many years did you go there?

Aleide: Since I came here since 2007, I started to go. At the beginning, I didn’t go every day? I was sometimes I skipped some year, but that ways I went there. So there I learned the grammar over there. Yes.

Change of Plans: Deciding to Leave/31:02

Months after my initial interview with Aleide, I caught up with her days before her departure from the U.S. for her homeland of Brazil. Here’s our conversation.

Deborah: So Aleide is my guest today. And we’re just doing a little addendum to the interview that we did a few months ago because change of plans. So talk to me about your change of plans. 

Aleide: Well, we decided to go back to Brazil. Moving back to Brazil for good.

Deborah: In the interview that we did you said, “I want to retire. I want to be free. I want to go back to Brazil. See my mom who’s ninety-three and I don’t think I want to work hard. Like I am working right now. I’m almost 59. And my dream is to be in Brazil by January next year. Because I can’t live here and not being able to go back and forth.” 

Aleide: Yes, that’s what I said. That’s what I’m doing. 

Deborah: Okay.

Aleide:  We are going back me and Adson.

Deborah: You also said, if you could have become a citizen here, you might have stayed and then gone back and forth more freely.

Aleide: Yes. If I could go back and forth, I would stay for a while longer. So by the end, I’m sure that I would be back to Brazil anyway, but, I would stay longer.

Deborah: Was it a hard decision? 

Aleide: It was to us. Was planning to go back to Brazil for three years maybe. We always have the idea to go back to Brazil but for the last three years really said, “It’s time to go.” We were waiting for the right moment. And then now it’s the right moment.

The Right Time to Say Goodbye/33:03

Deborah: And why is now the right moment? 

Aleide: We achieved what we wanted here. 

Deborah: Which was? 

Aleide: Well, save some money. My daughter was here studying. She finished her English. She finished her master’s degree and I think it now it’s time. I love it here. No, I love, I love, I love the Boston. I love people that I met here. I met so many great people here. I love, I love it. These people, you, the whole GPA, and people that I worked for we have a real relationship. Know just creates. I received so many not, just benefits. Real feeling, I know they are real, really feeling sad because I’m leaving and I’m sad to always everyone that I say goodbye. We cried. Yes.

Deborah: They were sorry to see you go. 

Aleide: Yeah. 

Deborah: Will you stay in touch with people? 

Aleide: Yeah. How, how long did they ask, please be in touch. Sending me your email so sending me your phone over there. So you let’s go over and be on WhatsApp, say, sure. All of them, I used to have a contact. They are all of it. Then asked me to show on Google, where I am going. So that’s the place so good. So, and I think some or another will come to us really. Really. 

Deborah: That would be wonderful. 

Aleide: Yeah. Be so happy to have any of you guys be a guest in Brazil. Why would we be so happy really.

What She’ll Miss/35:12

Deborah: What do you think you’re going to miss the most?

Aleide: Well, beside the people of course, I miss so much the spring time. Even though I love the winter. And today, all this snow, for my departure was very nice. I love the snow.

Deborah: Really? 

Aleide: I do love the snow falling down. But this springtime is just unbelievable. When I arrived it was summer, July. And to me okay. That landscape, but like hearts and the trees and everything they’re there. The fall was fine. Nice views. There’s so beautiful, but not to compare it to this spring know. I was every, to me is the same thing I love. So I dunno. So some things, that comes, I don’t know to express, but every year is something that I love it the same way was the first time you know.

Deborah: So in Brazil, you don’t have a season like spring time? 

Aleide: We do, but not like here. This spring is different, a little bit different, but not like here, cause you don’t have a really, we don’t have all the seasons so distinct. So, and one thing that makes me feel here I realized is how fast time goes by because every season you’ll see summer again. It’s fall again, so that makes us realize as well that our time is passing you know. And then you have to realize, I’m almost sixty. I’m fifty-nine. I know no one knows who is gonna go first. But like when you get sixty, just you’ll know that the time is really running out you know what I mean. 

Deborah: It becomes more precious.

Aleide: Exactly. And then I don’t want I go back to when I barely can walk you know. I used to have some energy and you still have I have energy, strength. So, so to go back and enjoy. 

Deborah: That sounds good. You and Adson were talking about how when you came here it was like a new life. And now going back to Brazil is going to be like a new life again. And how is it going to be like a new life again for you to go to Brazil? 

Aleide: Oh, it’s a challenge. My friends told me when I came in here was forty-six and he said, you want to avoid it to be old, so when you come, you’ll have is everything so new to you so, and you have it to your brain must work. When, when you came here and it’s different now want to go back and because we have our roots, there is a new beginning. Yes. But, it’s not like here when everything was how would say there wasn’t. 

Deborah: Brand new. 

Aleide: Brand new. We didn’t know what you would find here. We didn’t know the language. I remember taking train. We didn’t have a GPS that time. So we had a map, use maps at that time. We stayed one year and a half we didn’t have a car here. So then we bought an old car. Shift. Manual was too. We used to have in my car a book the maps, you know. 

Deborah: Right.

Aleide: Before we left the house before we started to drive, we’ve got there and find it all the routes are great. So much easier now. Now it’s totally fine. You can go anywhere.

Staying in Touch/39:53

Deborah: Well, and communication between the two countries is easier now with WhatsApp and internet—all those things. What one thing are you looking forward to the most? I know to see your family. Is there something else that you’re looking forward to so much about going back to Brazil in addition to reuniting with your friends and family?

Aleide: But one thing that I miss so much is to see a performance with people. We have friends there who are musicians and walking through the old streets that I used to know is really going back. Can see the place, talk my language all the time. 

Deborah: Yes. 

Aleide: That’s something you feel—I don’t know, like comfortable. I speak all day long. Most of the time in English is good. 

Deborah: Yes. You do very well. You express yourself very well. 

Aleide: But being in my country, being in my hometown and see the people there. So talk and go to the events, go to dinner, listen to the music. Even though you can’t listen to the music anywhere now cause we’ll have to do that acknowledge cause it’s different. 

Deborah: Right. 

Aleide: Once we be together and do the same thing they used to do before. 

Deborah: But will you be able to do that given COVID 19 and all that?

Aleide: Not really, but maybe one year I think would be not huge events, but the close the friend didn’t know. But the other since. 

Deborah: It’s a good time in terms of the vaccine being out there in the world now that’s going to change things.

Aleide: Yeah. In the way that it’s going to be. I hope I’ll be alive!

Deborah: When you came here you left the twins because they were in college. And then one of them is still—they visited you here from time to time. And one of them, Marianna is still is going to stay in the United States. Why is that?

Aleide: Oh, it’s not time for her to go. I think she would love to go back with us. It’s not her time. She’s too young and she has her own plan, her own goals. 

Canine Love/42:31

Deborah: Adson was saying that you both love dogs and that you can’t have dogs here so much, but that’s one of the things you wanted to be sure to have in Brazil.

Aleide: Yeah. We had four dogs when we left and now we’ll have a big backyard in Brazil. Is important because you know dogs they alert us if something’s not right. We have snakes in the backyard. Because where we are we going to live is a preservational area. 

Deborah: So the dogs are a form of protection too. 

Aleide: Yes, in Brazil it is very common to have dogs in your back yard. Not really inside the house, you have they live outside. So they are free to run around. So, you know, so yeah, they have their dog house outside. Most of them live outside. They don’t live in an apartment. You have to have a place for them outside. 

Deborah: Is there anything else that you would like to say about the decision of leaving? 

Aleide: The decision is right. It’s the right thing to do right now. 

Facing Political Issues in Brazil/43:49

Deborah: How about anything about the political situation down there with Bolsanaro? 

Aleide: Because bad, the political situation is bad. 

Deborah: That’s not frightening you?

Aleide: Not really, but make us sad. Doesn’t matter where you make us sad. I know I’m going to be we’re going to be “recude,” how you say?

Deborah: Oh, recluse. 

Aleide: Because. 

Deborah: Stay on your own. 

Aleide: We’re gonna try to stay away from the situation is so bad because we see people that we know, and now they are in favor of this crazy guy. You don’t understand how, why it’s so bad. They say, “Oh, you have to talk to people who think different from you.” But seriously this kinds of thoughts, I don’t want to discuss. It’s so bad. 

Deborah: I hope you’ll be safe and that your mother is going to be so thrilled to see you. Oh my God! 

Aleide: She’s just counting the days.

Deborah: That’s fantastic. Anything else that you can think of? 

Thank You to All/45:09

Aleide: I have to say, thank you to Boston. To the people I met here, for people that are like you, Michelle, Erica. And I don’t want to say names because is so though it’s not the GPA and the Boston community, just so many people behind. Right. So I just have to say thank you so much. And I don’t regret anything, not for a minute, even for a minute to have come here because we you grow as a person, your financial was good too. So we are leaving this country but we grew roots here as well to me because you have so much respect for the people. I never thought grow this kind of relationship here. Really. I never thought that this would happen so, and happened. 

Deborah: That’s great. 

Aleide: So I’m so very grateful, not just me, Adson, Marianna, my daughter, she’s so well connected here too. So I’m very happy for us as a human. We did this, but when we made I’m not sure which digital made to this kid, but they’ll just happened because I mean that very happy outside I lived in you. In the end, it’s just this, the positive. 

Deborah: That’s wonderful, no regrets. And you learned a lot and you learned a language. 

Aleide: That’s amazing. Yeah. I don’t wanna lose that. I wanna, like I said, I was still watching TV in English movies now. I don’t want to, I don’t want to go back just cookies and then you’ll have a chance to be on Zoom classes on Zoom.

Deborah: You should really get some of your friends together there in Brazil and we’ll have a satellite English. 

Aleide: I already have friends that they say, wow, I told you this. Well, there they are ready to go to school with us.

Deborah: Wonderful. 

Aleide: Whoa. I could, I thought about these verses and none of these possible, so on it is. So I knew that he had happy and they’ll make my friends very happy.

Deborah: I don’t want to hang up, but . . . 

Aleide: We have to. 

Deborah: So thank you so much.

Aleide: Thank you, Deborah. 

Deborah: Safe travels. Well, you safe travels wherever you go and stay in touch. And, it’s been an honor to meet you and, and work with you and Adson in the classroom. 

Aleide: You guys are great. 

Deborah: Okay.

Wrapping Up/48:16

Saddened by Aleide’s and Adson’s imminent departure, our goodbye tears are mixed with happiness ones for their retirement years in Brazil. We are grateful for the enormous contribution Aleide and her husband Adson have made to our Gardner Pilot Academy and greater Boston communities. With the tools of today’s technology, we know we will stay in touch with them.



Guest Intro
Coming to the U.S.
Adapting and Finding Work
Starting a Business
Deciding to Stay
Personal Growth
Future Dreams
During Covid
Learning English
Change of Plans: Deciding to Leave
The Right Time to Say Goodbye
What She'll Miss
Staying in Touch
Canine Love
Facing Political Issues in Brazil
Thank You to All
Wrapping Up