The Christmas Eve dinner of the homeless in the Senate

[Inkriql]

María Elena García, 63, holds four invitations. Four tickets for the Christmas Eve invitation organized each year by Messengers of Peace in Madrid, which seem like a memory worth keeping. The role has survived several pension transfers and is, perhaps, reminiscent of a previous life. Because this dinner encourages her, again, to paint her lips red, brush her hair with hairpins, wear her favorite earrings and celebrate these dates. Despite having everything against.

The event has been organized other years in the Cibeles Palace or the Prado Museum and its fifth edition takes place in the Senate. Under the gaze of the architects of the Transition, portrayed by the painter Hernán Cortés Moreno, 150 guests leave their coats in the entrance closet and parade through the halls of the upper chamber until they sit in the dining room. Some sleep on the street, others pay a room with the Minimum Insertion Income (RMI) of 425 euros or live in one of the apartments offered by the association of Father Angel, chaplain of the parish of San Antón and promoter of the initiative: "These cold days will hear in many shelters that there is no place for them, so we want to make a place in the Senate," explains the priest.

    Thanks to @FundacionLaLiga, @LaLiga, @MacroEsp, @rdelacalle and @Senadoesp that have allowed us almost three hundred people to have a dignified Christmas Eve in the Chamber and in San Antón. pic.twitter.com/4pd0BhXUJJ
    - Messengers of Peace (@Padre__Angel) December 25, 2019

At the table next to María Elena's, sits Musa, a 27-year-old Guinean who arrived in the city only a month and a half ago. Here he has known little roof, but a lot of ground; that of the sidewalks and the recesses where he takes refuge for the night. I wanted to enjoy dinner comfortably and have taken a hot shower in the bathhouse. He is not the only one: they have all wanted to take care of their appearance. And they wait expectantly for the chef's menu with a Michelin star Rodrigo de la Calle. The dishes, announced in an individual letter, promise to be a treatise of raw material and simplicity.

But first, with the diners already distributed around the room, comes Pilar Llop, president of the Senate, who thanks Messengers of Peace for his work: “The first issue that was presented to me on the table when I was elected president of this institution was precisely Father Ángel's request to be able to celebrate Christmas Eve dinner here. That demand was approved unanimously, ”he notes. And he adds: “I know that with this we do not solve anything, but I think this is a gesture, a wake-up call to put the focus on the needs of people who go through serious difficulties and who need the attention of the Public Administrations” .

After these words, Llop says hello, table by table, one by one, to the guests. Some cathartic scene is lived, like when Yasmin del Rosario hugs the president and breaks into tears. The Chilean sexagenaria later explains to this newspaper that, if not for the invitation, she would dine a sandwich in the open: "It is easy to resort to common places and say that all politicians are bad," she defends. When Iberian hors d'oeuvres crowned with almonds begin to pass, several television cameras stop recording. The senators of different groups that served as entourage to Llop retreat. Only two of them, dressed in the yellow volunteer vest, stay and serve the tables.