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An unexpected conversation

We had spent the whole day out on the street, sharing information about Ubuntu and running various errands. By the end of the day I was tired and just wanted to go home. But I missed my bus.

I sat down to wait for the next one at the bus station. Next to me was an older woman calmly eating a small custard dessert, and she started talking to me. I didn't know then that this conversation would stay with me long after my bus arrived.

We'll call her María Elena. I didn't ask her age — I didn't want to turn that chat into an interrogation — but from her appearance and what she told me, she must have been at least 68.

She's Cuban. She told me she'd been living at the station itself for a while, sharing space with other women who were also experiencing homelessness, and with whom she'd had problems and falling-outs. But her story hadn't started there.

A life built through work

María Elena had worked for years as a live-in domestic employee. She had worked, saved, and built her life through effort. She told me she was educated, and she repeated it with a mix of pride and a need to be recognised: "Do you think I have no education?" Her daughters were engineers and architects.

Her life, however, had taken an unexpected turn. During the pandemic she'd had to stay in Cuba, and by the time she was finally able to return, a lot had changed. What had been her everyday life was no longer there in the same way.

At some point she found shelter in a public homelessness resource, but after a falling-out with the people who ran or used that resource, she was no longer able to stay there. And she ended up at the station.

"I have my own money"

María Elena explained that she received a pension, that she had income, and that in principle that money could let her rent a room. I mentioned that Ubuntu Canarias might be able to help her look for a room in a cheaper neighbourhood, or support her with whatever paperwork she needed.

She said no. She didn't want to. And in that "no" there was something that struck me in particular: it didn't seem like a simple refusal — it seemed like there was something deeper behind it.

She told me she bought her own food, that she looked after herself, that she went to the public baths. She was perfectly clean and took care of her appearance. She had money for her basic needs. And yet, she slept at a bus station.

A loss too big to bear

As we talked, another part of her story emerged. She told me that one of her daughters had been about to travel to be with her, but that, around a year earlier, she had died suddenly of cancer.

Some losses change forever the way a person sees the world. I don't know whether that loss explains part of her situation — it wouldn't be fair to claim that — and I don't know all the events that happened before she arrived at the station either. That is exactly why I don't want to judge.

I don't know her whole story. Nor did she tell me all of it, but I did get to hear part of it. María Elena is the daughter of a Spanish woman who had lived and married in Cuba. She also told me about another close relative she was waiting for, who was doing the paperwork to be able to arrive. Her hope rested, in good part, on that reunion. Maybe then she could leave the station behind.

Beyond the labels

When I think about that conversation, there's something that keeps coming back to me. I could simply have seen an older homeless woman, an immigrant, a person living at a bus station. But during those minutes, I didn't see any of those labels.

I saw a woman who had worked, who had studied, who had raised her daughters and built a life. Who had lost a daughter. Who had lived through a radical change after the pandemic and had been through shelters, with their own conflicts. Who had a pension and had pride, and who somehow seemed to have armoured herself.

Maybe pride was her way of protecting herself. Maybe, after certain experiences, she had decided she didn't want to ask for help again, that she needed to prove she could carry on by herself. I don't know, and I don't want to invent an explanation for a life I don't know. But I do know that conversation made me think about how easy it is to look at a person and believe we know who they are.

Where homelessness and migration meet

María Elena's story also made me think about something we see up close at Ubuntu Canarias: situations of vulnerability rarely have a single cause. In hers, migration, ageing, loss, loneliness, homelessness, the breakdown of support networks and the consequences that unexpected events like a pandemic can leave behind all intersect.

And something we talk about too little also comes up: dignity. Because living on the street doesn't mean you stop having a story, a profession, an education, a family, dreams or preferences. It doesn't mean you stop having pride. It doesn't mean you stop being who you are.

At over 68 years old, María Elena kept claiming who she was and everything she had built throughout her life. She kept looking after herself, kept buying her own food, kept her own routines, kept waiting for her family. She kept being María Elena, even though that night her home was a bus station.

A hug before I left

Finally my bus arrived. I had to go. Before getting on, I gave her a hug — a simple one, the kind that doesn't solve anything but that maybe says: I saw you.

She stayed there. I left. And yet, that conversation came with me.

Since then I think about how many people we cross paths with every day, of whom we barely know a small part of their story. People who have arrived from another country. Who have lost someone. Who have worked for decades. Who have had a home and no longer have one. People who accept help, and people who refuse it. People who simply need someone to sit beside them for a few minutes and listen without judging them.