Having worked at the soup kitchen for various weeks now, I have come to have a great amount of affection for one of the ladies there. She has the same name as my grandmother (I am a great believer in coincidences). She is 79 years old and has been working at the kitchen for several years making the lunches.
We have a great time talking together while we prepare the food. I do as I am told as I have learned two things here in Chile. One is to never talk politics, and two is to never try and take over a woman´s kitchen. So I do as I am told while she spills the milk and hot water goes everywhere, and I slip in seasoning to the stock to make it more tasty while she isn´t looking.
She is a typical Chilean woman of her generation. Bleach is king and she keeps everything tidy as she goes along, I on the other hand am used to working amongst pots pans and barely any space on the sideboard. Margarita has taught me many things, but three of them stick out as a must have piece of advice for clean living. You must always keep your bedroom tidy, as you sleep there and must breathe in fresh air. You must always keep the kitchen tidy as you prepare food there that will go into your stomach. You must always keep your bathroom clean, and always have soap, and you must rinse the soap afterwards to keep it clean in the soap dish. Ah I feel like I am a youth again, learning things that I somehow should have learned before.
Margarita has told me the story of her life, and it makes me nostalgic. It takes me back to sitting in my grandmother Margaret´s house as she repeated stories of her sad, but sometimes fun childhood. Margarita is like many of the older people that come to the soup kitchen for lunch. They often have no family and rent rooms as that is all they can afford. They have had a tough life, especially having lived under the shadow of dictatorship during the 70s and 80s. Margarita came from a more wealthy background, but due to cancer, she had to sell her house for treatment and was left with nothing. Although she told me she prayed to God for her health, and she overcame the cancer and is now a spritely, joyous lady about to turn 80, in spite of having nothing material wise and no family left in Chile.
Stories like hers hurt my heart. She is one of many with the same story here. I have to admit the first time I came back from the kitchen I wept into Mauricio´s shoulder at the thought of these old people being left alone. Life really seems so unfair at times and it really broke my heart. It also made me very grateful for everything I have. A roof over my head, a partner that loves me and looks after me, a family that loves me that I left behind in England. It also reinforces and strengthens my feeling every day that money just does not have the value that people have seem to put on it. It is just not on my list of priorities at all. O.K. I am blessed that I have a place to live and food to eat, but I don´t have luxuries, and I have never wanted or needed them.
These old people, although they have little, come to the kitchen happy and leave happy. I take time to hug each one of them, to ask how they are, to give them a bit of affection. To put all my love in trying to make them a tasty meal. With every week that I go there, it eases my sorrow about their situation, by knowing that I am trying to give the best of me to them. As for Margarita I am learning new things with her every day. Destiny has guided me into her path. She is just like the grandmother I love and miss in England and I embrace every moment with her.
