Les Restos du Coeur

Above - Marseille's oldest house. You can see that the engravings of the road names are opposite to the road name signs. That's because the whole house was turned through 90* after the war. Above - Marseille's oldest house dating from the 16th century.

On Saturday evening I went out with Les Restos du Coeur. I was working with different volunteers this time, they seemed nicer and it was better. It also wasn't as cold as the last time I went out with them which was before Christmas. We were doing the same route as I'd done before Christmas - Joliette, Vieux Port, Le Panier, Bougainville, Rue de Lyon. There were 5 of us - Stephan, Suzanne, Aurelien, Valerie and me. There weren't as many homeless people this time but I recognised some of them. They were sleeping in the same places, wearing the same clothes as they had been before Christmas. And to think that I'd been home, celebrated Christmas, come back, drank goodness knows how many cups of tea, taken goodness knows how many showers and here they were with the same clothes, sleeping with the same rubbish around them. I did learn something though. Valerie is Marseillaise and like a typical Marseillais she is proud of her city. She showed me the oldest house in Marseille that was actually pivoted 90* after the war. I went back on Sunday and photographed it. Just opposite here is a doorway (you can't see it in the photo) where two of the sans abri sleep who we fed. They are always so grateful for the cup of hot soup or chocolate we give them along with the bag of food which, on Saturday night, had in it a pear, a baguette, a yoghurt, a chocolate bar, a cake and a tin of sardines or tuna (they got to choose). There was apparently cheese in the fridge as well but we forgot that. I was asked by quite a few of the sans abri 'pas de fromage' to which I just said 'pas ce soir'. It would seem cheese is popular with les sans abris in Marseille!