While the Ministry of Human Capital is carrying out the food distribution operation that is about to expire after the scandal broke out for having 5 million kilograms stored at the same time that hunger is growing, the news was known that last Tuesday, the volunteers of the comedor Los Horneritos received 3,800 people and delivered that same number of food rations. food. The event was shocking for the Mendoza community because it was a faithful portrait of the hunger that is experienced nationally and in every place in the interior of the country.
On Thursday morning, the mothers and volunteers of the Los Horneritos Merendero Comedor were already peeling vegetables and cutting the chicken for the night’s stew again. Gabriela Carmona, in charge of Dining roomreceived MDZ in your house where the place where selfishness does not enter operates.
The call was massive, higher than that of Tuesday, just as they expected to happen. “We delivered a ton of food,” says Gabriela, still surprised by what is happening. These are entire families looking for a plate of food because there is not enough at home.
The increasing demand and the explanation of women
“It is always between eleven and twelve hours of work. We start now in the morning and go until the long night that it is delivered. That’s where we get into trouble,” says Gabriela, pointing with her hand toward the street where the line gets longer and longer every week.
The work, he says, “is all voluntary. They are mothers who come to pick up the food later and who come in the afternoon to help us too,” says Gabriela. “They fight all day and the other day, on Tuesday, they had to stay because the demand was abysmal and they didn’t take food home,” she explains, due to the large number of people who attended, completely exceeding expectations.
For Thursday, everyone estimated that the same number of people “or more” would go, and they were not wrong. Together, they did the math and assured that the people who are going to eat are not only from the area. “Here we have people from Guaymallén, Borbollón, Panquehua, and the La Gloria neighborhood in Godoy Cruz because they come directly on the bus that goes to the neighborhood. The other day we worked out the bill with my husband and I told him that a thousand pesos as a bus is spent to come eat but the food is more expensive. With a thousand pesos they can’t eat and they prefer to pay the bus to get here and come look for food,” they consider.
Most of the people who attend have work but it is not enough for them. foodsays the woman. “Unfortunately, people sometimes believe that it is comfortable for them to come here. A comfortable person does not come to wait in line for hours in a place with eight degrees of temperature, as was the case on Tuesday,” she maintains.
The line can be measured in blocks, as was the case on Tuesday, when it was four blocks long, or also in time. “People wait in line for three hours here to be able to take the food home. At 9 p.m. we started delivering the food and at 12 we finished.”
Each family brings their taper, their pot or container, looks for the food and takes it home because the place is very small and is not enabled to eat there. The number of people who go looking for food has been increasing progressively and, “that is due to the situation in the country, to the lack of work. Every time there is work, demand drops here. When the farms are there. For example, here we have a farm in front of us, where it employs more than five hundred families and there the demand drops to 50%. Today the demand we have compared to last year is 300% more,” he confirms and adds that the demand also increased because people come from other parts of the province. “I believe that demand has increased because many soup kitchens are not working, either because they do not have supplies or because of the permanent demand from people,” she reflects.
“The truth is that we don’t know how it can continue. Many people say that the situation is bad, it is complicated, but other people tell you that it could be worse. This seems like a pressure cooker that no one knows when it will explode,” she concludes distressed.
