Solsona

jgl 001,
originally uploaded by jgluz71.

This is my dad in the room where he and my mother now live in the ground floor of my Aunt's house, a former mayor and town doctor of Solsona, her husband the current mayor. The room they reside in was first built as a clinic for my Aunt's private practice, I remember being 12 and playing chess (was never very good at it) with my father's father (I beat him only once eventhough he was old and my faculties just bripening)in the waiting room. At some point the room was turned into a bar/recreation room, and now as my aunt says it's a home for the old. In the photo, the 2 women on the right are the sisters that take turns giving 24 hour care for my parents (The woman outside the sliding door, Gianing,is a big and powerful woman, she can carry my mother in and out of cars, several meters if my mother's too tired to walk and there's no wheelchair available, her elder sister, Vering (these are their nicknames not sure what the real names are possibly Valeria and Gianine) smokes huge handrolled cigaretted:tobacco rolled in tobacco): laundry, bathing, cooking, cleaning, foot massaging. I'm ashamed to tell you how much my father pays them--apparently the deal started as payment for just a daily bath, but the sisters felt sorry for my parents and stuck around at night. Don't know if they're earning a decent living working for my parents, there are probably other benefits I don't realize like my dad buys more food than he or my mother could possibly eat, so most likely their families benefit as well. I will send the helpers something nice from the states out of guilt and grattitude: maybe earings or a carton of menthols.