(A-80) Status: Not Sponsored
Needs: water filter, a bed & mattress, pila (repairs), doctor's visit
For more stories and photos of the ancianos in the Feeding
Program, please consider purchasing a book compiled of our participants.
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Alberto speaks through his grandmother in the room she has rented since an earthquake destroyed her home.
This house looks over a dirt courtyard in the middle of the village, where the neighborhood kids play soccer in the afternoon, kicking the ball into the store fronts and church steps. You can see the game and the expanse of lake from the hallway window, which is caged in chicken wire.
Inside the sparse home Alberto is wearing his latest uniform-- a tape measure around his neck-- for one of the many odd jobs he takes.
Right now, he's a tailor. Before, he worked in construction. The money he got went to drinking.
He was lucky and went to school up till 6th grade, while his wife never went at all. His two older children made it up till high school but there was no money to continue: the eldest works as a day-laborer, his sister washes dishes when she can.
Alberto's wife, grandmother Matea and six children share two rooms and two beds. The older kids sleep on a woven mat on the cement.
They heat water on the stove and go outside to bathe. The electric bill of the house exceeds the salaries of the people who live there.
Matea cannot hear or see well anymore, so her grandkids speak straight into her ears while she looks off somewhere, past them.
She had two children. One died, the other lives in the neighboring town.
Besides the family, nothing else is hers.
If she had her own bed, or even her own little house, Alberto says, she might live with less sadness.
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