el rostro de la ciudad urbana que ella no quiere que veas

For quite sometime I've been seeing the same señora wandering around Irrarrazaval and Chile-España. I saw her on a bus once, crouched in the corner of the bus with people distancing themselves from her because she smelled like she hadn't showered in a long time. With her hole-saturated plastic bag holding her old old water bottle, with plastic bags of something, and a blue paragua sticking out, here stood this little woman of probably less than 5 feet, whom I later found out was 90 years old. Dressed in layers of shirts and a dark woolen jacket, skirt covered in dirt from sitting on the trash-littered streets of santiago and blacked from the accumaltion of dirty air. Her grey and white hair braided together with tangled pieces of hair ties. Her mouth was suken in for lack of teeth. Her face was weathered and tan, full of wrinkles and age. Her eyelids dropped concealing her clear blue eyes, her lashes sticking together from the liquid her eyes were producing. To see she always had to tilt her head back to see the people staring at her, ignoring her, and or dropping money in her little cardboard box. She always is sitting down, and because of her small size and her position, typical of any urban landscape, she is often missed or ignored. The times I've seen her I've wanted so bad to talk to her, but I would either be on the way to class or in a group of people herding around. But I also had the fear that I wouldn't be able to communicate very well with her because of my limited Spanish and my limited comprehension.

Finally today God created an opportunity. I woke up contemplating not to go to my "early" class today, but I was prompted by some unknown willpower to get out of my bed, get ready, and go to class. Seeing the bus al lado de mi, I jogged to the bus stop right when the bus stopped to pick people up. I ran on. Sped walk to class, onto campus, and into the room.. where no one was there except for my gringo compañero de clase. After waiting around a bit we decided that there was no class since even the normally punctual professor didn't show up. I left a bit bummed because I could have slept in. But God had other plans.

I planned to go to my other class on another campus across Santiago really early, but when I got off the micro to change buses, I saw her right in fron of the stop. I had an hour or so before the I need to go to class. I saw a lady give her some coins. After standng for a little watching the lady give her coins and while I was looking up a word in my Spanish-English dictionary (I do that a lot), I walked up to her and introduced myself and sat down next to her. I handed her some money and started talking to her. Asked her how long she had been out here. 6 or 8 years. I asked her were she was from originally, and I think she said Argentina. She had an accent. But she was also hard to understand because she had no teeth. She started talking and talking. They just want you to listen y nada mas. What really broke my heart was when she said that she was going to die like a dog on the streets. That she was no one and no one would notice her when when she died. I tried to tell here that she was a somebody. Even though I only understood maybe 60 percent of what she said, I grasped that she had family in Buenos Aires and in Cartagena, Chile. I asked, "a Ud. se le echaron?", and she said "si, por viejo". I realized how tragic the trend of people in such situations has been. That they've been essentially thrown out of the homes of their children and relatives because they've become a so-called burden. She had been working here and there, but at 90 years old she was in no shape to work anymore. She had a hunchback, her eyes were closing shut, she had no teeth and was unable to speak very clearly. She still had a sharp mind though.

Another thing that caught my attention was that she said that she was going to go buy some bread. But I asked her, le cuesta comerlo? and she said yes, but what else could she buy? Soup or any other food that is more liquidy and soft would cost too much. I can't imagine how hard it is for someone without teeth to eat bread. I wanted to so bad to make her soup or some sort of food that would be easier for her to eat. Hopefully I will be able to do that. It was a relatively short time of talking with her, but it brought me back to reality once again, and again God tugged my heart telling me to never forget them.

She was set on getting up and getting herself a drink so I despedired myself. I walked but looked back and saw her get up slowly and waddle lentamente towards another direction with her broken bag in the midst of the fast-paced people of Santiago. Later seeing a massively fat dog and its owner, I thought to myself how sad and messed up this world could be.