Rocío Torres Nombela / The soup kitchen of the Sisters of Charity opened the doors for Development Platform at Christmas. As a result we were soaked from a painful reality, which homeless people live in Madrid and, by extension, of all the homeless in our country.
At this time of year, shelters and soup kitchens increase their activity by 30%. The reason is that the Christmas spirit that donations made to triple at this time of year. But it will increase its stock, increase calls to your door, people struggling against the icy nights of Madrid.
Away from the tables laden with sweets and champagne, surrounded by happy family singing carols, there is a world apart. A world where survival is the end of each day. And this has to do a number of institutions, professionals and volunteers, whose work can make this world a little better every day.
lowering the central street of the Fish, I kept imagining how it could be a shelter. Arrived. That house ... everyone would soon teach me that the saddest of poor are not the red from your bank account, but their social exclusion.
Sor Manuela I expected, the director, Andrew, social educator in charge of doing the interviews to select the indigent passing the dining room, Adela, a volunteer with many years of experience is the goal, and Rosario Sr., who along with other volunteers, Maria and Carmen, are responsible for cleaning the shelter and care in the dining room .
I received Sister Rosario. Excited, I showed her into the dining room, where they rested some of the homeless. Some saw the television, others were playing dominoes and others simply took refuge from the cold winter.
The food arrives every day made, thanks to donations from several hotels Madrid, and being honest, the quality is superb. Rosario said that as a starter, always "ask for something hot as possibly the only one to eat all day."
Despite the difficulty getting something in the mouth, the poor also have their peculiarities. Andrea, a common dining room, is tired of repeating to the volunteers who do not want in your tray bread, because "fat a lot." However, they also had confessed to me that this was the third room they visited that day, because "the food you put in the other one I liked the second plate." Regulation to control this non-existent.
As I explained Sister Rosario, in the dining room covers an "urgent need: to eat. But we can never get there, because our work goes further. For example also cure to all the homeless that come with some sort of problem. " That was the case of Constantin, a Romanian immigrant who came to our country "with one hand in front and behind, and could not even communicate with his family to tell them he was alive. During my visit to the hostel was completely burned hands from the cold. Serious infections in their wounds had made her skin started to fall. Your face, torn by grief, was the mirror of a soul that had suffered the unthinkable.
could surprise to learn that in the hostel of the Sisters of Charity, the homeless sleep in folding chairs instead of beds. But not all who wish to stay overnight can do, and it will only pick those that SAMUR night in the street because I consider it extremely urgent.
When the nun taught me the room where the beggars sleep, opening the door, I noticed a strange smell. While trying to figure out what smelled and where it came from, Sister Rosario asked: "You know what smells here?". The question hit me, precisely because this issue was around my head. I replied that I did not know, to which Rosario replied: "Here smells poor.
For those who need psychological support, shelter have social workers try to help them out of the situation of social exclusion in which they find themselves. I say try because most suspicious, and do not want to stay more than a day on campus, rejecting any assistance for their reintegration. For them, the hostel is like a prison and just feel free on the street.
Most have psychological problems, including some flirt with drugs or alcohol, an issue that look with a magnifying glass to open the doors to anyone because they may be players in heated debates and even riots in the hostel. But there have been, told me, who have been on the street, because life has been elusive, "and all come against us, after a problem that can happen to anyone." A Rodolfo lose his job caused him to lose his home and later his wife, which led him to drink and to give him a hand the rest of his family well, "a virtually overnight on the street I saw nothing."
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