I was seventeen years old when, in 2010, social inequalities started to arouse my interest. I could not understand how it was possible that some people were sleeping on the street while others could comfortably sleep in a bed. Rafael was a gypsy man of fifty years old and the first person that allowed me to consider this reality. He used to live and sleep on a bench in front of the Santa Catalina convent of Barcelona. Over the years, we have come to know each other better and I occasionally brought him a new shirt, a hot coffee with a lot of sugar, and I always expected to listen one of his best songs or a new story of his earlier life. He was lame and often sick. Once, I photographed him near a dog grooming shop for a personal project because I was outraged to observe this social contrast between this shining and luxurious place and a homeless. In 2013, Rafael was interned in the same hospital where his wife was treated. His condition was critical and despite my searches, I never heard from him again.

Few years later, in september 2014, I sought an organization in Barcelona where to help disadvantaged people at a local level. I explain through this project which relation I always had with the Casa Solidaria NGO, a very well organized group of volunteers who cooked and provided food to those who need it the most. At the beginning, my job was to bring thirty bananas every Sunday evening and during the food distribution I started to observe shyly over two hundred people walking in front of me to get their hot meal and to share a brief conversation with us, night workers. It was very hard. I remember to be crying coming back home because many stories gave a slap to my good student's cheek. Ignacio was a smiling man of forty years old, who told me once that his children were living in a foster family. It was difficult to bear. He did not ask for help to his brothers because he was just too proud but he continued struggling as he could to get out of this unstable situation. "The first few weeks, I slept on the bank cashiers and I was afraid of it. But over the years I had good and bad relationships that helped me to endure this situation. You can’t imagine what we live on the street. Come sleep with us and you’ll understand what it means to don’t know what will happen to you tomorrow.” Soon after this conversations, I remember Ignacio sleeping under a bridge of the North Station park of Barcelona with other fellow travellers. From time to time he did not recognize me and I started to see him increasingly weakened. But he was still smiling, making jokes to his closest friends and thanking each of the hugs he received from them.

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Ignacio has been the first person I met at the NGO, along with Santiago, a Chilean man of forty-two years old who always slept at the entrance of the Sagrada Familia library. He used to come every night to our food distribution because he knew he would be welcomed very warmly. He lived in Chile and in Sweden with his family, but according to him, he had not been well accepted in any of the two countries for being an homosexual catholic. I enjoyed visiting Santiago once a week, after school, because he needed much affection. We used to walk together and discuss about crucial life controversies although he was suffering a mental disorder, constantly haunted by evil women who wanted to attack him. By that time, he was admitted to the Clinical Hospital of Barcelona, and I continued my visits there to make him feel encouraged and in confidence. I still remember the visitor’s common room, in which he held my hand like a child fearing to be mistreated. He told me his secrets, his favourite pop and rock songs, his way to admire ballet dancers simply because their penis were marked in their tighty pants. Santiago was a sensitive man. Someday, he will no longer hide and disguise his fears. I remember when he said: "I want to help people without treating them as slaves or business articles, but just as human beings. When they need help we must help them, just as people helped me. I would like to offer my advices to other gay men.”  For months now, this Chilean traveller has left Barcelona. He wanted to get Israel the soon as possible because God told him to go there. But his physical and mental states were already worrisome. I hope he fulfilled his desires. He deserved to live elsewhere than on the street… such as many other people.