I approached the neighbors directly with my video camera, walking the streets, knocking at the doors and asking the following questions: How many years have you been living in this neighborhood? Who, in your opinion, is the person most in need, most abandoned from among your neighbors, who has not received what he/she deserved? If someone were to receive a big present or a reward, would that be the right person? Do you think that person is really in need and prepared to receive that help?

The survey among forty-four persons showed three who met these requirements: Rosa Estévez, Nin Ochoa and Daniel Pérz, whom I visited and with whom I chatted to inquire about their immediate needs, their wishes, frustrations and goals. All three of them informed of similar needs because poor housing conditions are a common problem, but each one spoke of his/her life as the individual treasure it is.

Nin (Marcelina Ochoa) is an 88-year old lady who has problems with walking as a result of a chronic lymphangitis; she is commonly ill and with numerous ailments of old age. Every morning, one of her children sits her in the porch ´to get some air´ and ´watch the day go by´. Everything she saw from her chair was waste, junk, bottles, cans, dirty water from the eventual rubbish dumps created by time and negligence, pieces of floor tiles, mud, improvised clothes-lines and a whole imagery of rubbish that piled up in the place.

My idea was to satisfy these needs and turn the backyard into a sort of ´enchanted garden´. The repair and construction work was put in motion by the imagination and the will not only of Nin but of one of her son, a master in building.

René Francisco