Editor’s Note: This is the second of three stories about the Mejîa family of Ottumwa.

OTTUMWA — On a recent visit, Ellianna Mejia was picking up clothes as she listened to music. No one had asked her to do any cleaning.

“I just like to help around the house,” she said.

She tossed the clothes into a white laundry basket as she went. When it was full, she grabbed it up and headed for the door.

“We don’t have our washing machine yet,” said her mother, Maria.

Having friends nearby comes in handy; her “comadre” lives just down the street, and she has a washing machine. That’s where Ellianna takes the basket of wash.

Comadre — there is no commonly used English word for the concept of a close female friend like this. But since madre is the Spanish word for mother, it looks like it could be a co-mother, and that’s pretty close, Maria said.

“What do you call it in English when someone is the godmother of your child?” she asks.

The answer, she was told, is simply “godmother of my child.”

“Oh. Well in Spanish, they are our ‘comadre.’”

“Write that down,” said that day’s interpreter, Lorena Perez. “That’s very important.”

“Yes,” said Maria in English. “Important.”

When Maria was ready to go shopping, she waited for her close friend, her comadre, to come over. They both hopped in Maria’s Ford Explorer and went to the store.

Her comadre has a car, but why should they each drive separately?