“Marcela” is a symbol, but she is also real, flesh and blood, this is a call for help from someone who knows she doesn’t know and wants to help.
Since August of last year I have been living in the Solera Bennett Building, in front of Parque Morazán. Every day, I religiously sit down at dawn to write my diary, meditate, read the Course, look out the window.
It is an interesting window to say the least. Diagonal to the now Aurola Marriott, every morning I see the tours that go to Tortuga Island and Tortuguero arriving, I remind myself of my history as a guide, a tattoo that I will carry until the last of my days in my soul. I see Interbus, and a lot of other buses, minibuses and trolleys of every color and flavor getting on and off passengers non-stop all morning long.
Likewise, I see and suffer the trucks that arrive to drop off various goods at the Musi, down here.
I see the patrols and their searches, I see those waiting for the cars that will take them to their jobs and inevitably I see the homeless. These human beings that we all see and no one sees. Those to whom we give the arrogant gift of our compassion when not that of direct annoyance, by their attitudes, their smells, their continuous filth, and the terrible sadness that dwells in their faces as if spitting at us that they are also ours. Human. And as such, mirrors of realities that we do not want to admit… (or do we? Who am I to say that you do not admit them?).
Parque Morazán is a parallel reality, it is like a Sims game, in which we are all, inevitably, “NPCs” (Non playing characters, that is… extras.). Whatever I think of the people below is bound to be wrong. The only thing I see is what I think. So, having said that, I want to tell you about “Marcela”.
I saw “Marcela” for the first time shortly after arriving here. A pretty woman, walking barefoot, sandals in hand, at six o’clock in the morning; long, soft curly hair, with a worn but present, somewhat blonde tint still. Somehow I sensed her contentment, God only knows why! I saw her a few hours later buying a beer at the Musi. I thought it would be a party girl waiting for someone or something to go home.
That happens here in Morazán from time to time. Someone comes along with a six pack, or a solitary beer and sits around, hanging out, with friends or in silence.
But “Marcela” became a daily occurrence. That’s why I named her, to distinguish her from the rest.
Every once in a while he would appear, with a somewhat pungent voice, asking a pedestrian smoker for a cigarette. I didn’t realize she was homeless until weeks after seeing her. It is not the classic. That is the point. She does not have the haggard face of the crack addicts, nor the blotchy face of the drunkards, she is a healthy, robust, beautiful woman. She’s not even thin, she’s got her curves. If she dressed up she could look amazing anywhere.
I named her “Marcela” in my own story.
One day in November she disappeared, I didn’t see her again for several months.
In those days some crack addicts camped in the dry fountain of the park, and lots and lots of policemen began to fill the streets of December.
I think it was in January that she reappeared. With short hair. It was like she was coming to the park for the day. He wandered among the little meadows getting sun like Diogenes, sleeping more hours than a newborn baby. Smoking at times, sitting at others. Many times just staring into the void.
For a few weeks, I saw her talking to different people. Someone would stop by on a motorcycle and give her cigarettes in the mornings. Another would leave her breakfast from time to time. I think at that time she was sleeping somewhere.
A few weeks ago I decided to find out more about her because something changed and she sleeps here, out in the open. If it is not raining in any dry corner of the park; when we are in a downpour, she takes a place at the side of the hotel. Interestingly, she leaves at times and comes back with other clothes, rags more and rags less. Sometimes she seems fine, other days it is as if Life has run over her with viciousness and rancor. Urinate anywhere, the other, she does behind any bush.
I have thought for weeks about bringing her this or that. I stop myself.
Sometimes I’ve kicked myself for those “savior of mankind” impulses. I have learned my lesson and bueh, here I am writing, because soon and someone knows how we can seriously help her.
Musi’s people say that at the beginning she came in and everything worked very well, but at times she became very aggressive and sometimes she had to be forcibly removed from the door from where she would at times, harrass the clients and whatever else. (Again, what do I know what this girl is looking for?)
Sometimes humanitarian groups come and feed her.
On Sunday, someone waiting for a ride approached her, spoke to her, gave her something and hugged her with such tenderness that tears came to my eyes. I will never know who this wonderful woman was, but the gift was not only given to this poor woman abandoned by life.
There are those who give herwater, permission to stay under a roof, and an occasional pastry, but nothing temporary seems to really help.
“Marcela” has some serious mental disorder. I dare not diagnose anything of course. But she has it, undoubtedly.
Sometimes we see her fighting, singing, shouting. But she usually sleeps and sleeps and sleeps, all day and all night.
It smells like a terrible depression. But I don’t know.
So, I pose the question: Is there anything that can be done for this woman?
Is there an institution that can pick up the baton of this call and give you what you need? Treatment? Human Rights? Women’s Rights?
Here they are.
Obviously I’m not going to post a picture of her. But if anyone can do anything to get her out of the daily hell of the streets, just come to the Morazán on the Solera Bennett side. She is rarely not here.