As I was about to squeeze into the small car, the Sunday morning breeze carried the scent of the orange trees scattered in Ms. Daryanani’s backyard mixed with the warm smell of the chicken-carrot soup. The only thing left to do was add the spices to the soup. The two oversized soup pots, almost as tall as a young boy, were sealed, loaded, and secured onto the old white pickup truck. Everyone piled into the separate cars, and we were off.

Ms. Daryanani, my 8th grade english teacher, organized a homeless feeded every third Sunday of the month. Anyone from school and outside of school was invited to join, and each time there was a different group. Today, however, we were quite a large group. Three of my teachers, six friends, some of their siblings, and five of Ms. D’s neighbors came. We always met at Ms. D’s house, where we would make the soup out front in her covered garage; chopping vegetables, stirring soup, even preparing bread, everyone participated somehow.

It only took about twenty minutes to get to El Centro, where we would serve lunch to a group of homeless men and women, but based on what we saw out the windows, you would think we had gone miles from home. Getting into the cars, we left the suburbia culture of big houses enclosed by gated communities of tennis clubs and perfectly paved bike paths behind. Once we passed the toll bridge, went through the tunnel and took the third exit on the highway, we got out of the cars to a completely different life. We had left Valle del Sol, and were now in the heart of downtown San Jose.

The Costa Rican streets hadn’t been paved in over two decades, and had more potholes than the average car could handle. These streets were littered with trash, sprinkled with dog poo, and the occasional dead animal would appear. The buildings – if you could even call them that – were small structures, and the tin roofs of the houses made me wonder what sitting inside the living room during a thunderstorm would be like.

As usual, the line of men and women, young and old, had already gathered at our normal parking spot; we always came to the same location, a hill next to a soccer field where many of the homeless lived. The white pickup truck was the first to pull onto the curb, and the four other cars parked behind it. The people from the area were always peering into cars, so anyone who brought any belongings quickly hid their purses under the car seats, put their phones in the glove compartments, and locked the doors. Some of the men in line looked at us with almost the same look they gave the soup - but we didn’t care. I was wearing old faded jeans, an old t-shirt, and surrounded by adults, so we knew nothing bad would happen - but you can never be too safe. The men who lined these streets were avid drug users; it’s one of the many reasons Ms. D chose this exact location to help. The men didn’t know any better, they weren’t educated, and we just wanted to prevent any uncomfortable situations by wearing grungy attire.

The younger kids, some of Ms. D’s neighbors or siblings of my friends, climbed in the back of the truck; they were in charge of handing out the juice and cookies. The rest of us surrounded the back of the truck, ready to place bowls of scorching chicken soup in the blistered, callused hands of a person who may not have eaten in days.

The lids came off the soup pots. The welcoming smell of the soup immediately engulfed everyone’s noses that had just been filled with the smell of smog and garbage.

And the serving began.

The assembly line always moved smoothly: spoon the soup into a bowl, place the piece of bread on top, hand out a cookie or two with a glass of juice, and tell them to be careful since the soup would be hot against the broken skin on their lips and gums where teeth should be. Sometimes they would take more than their fair share, but no one cared. If they wanted two bowls of soup we’d help them carry the hot bowls to their home, or the piece of cardboard lying beneath an awning they called home. However, the kids were never allowed by the teachers and parents to venture too far from the crowd.

I remember one woman named Linda. She joined us everytime we came to hand out soup, and always hung around to talk a little, not because she felt obligated to, but because she really liked to talk to us. We loved hearing her stories too. Linda used to speak seven languages; English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, French, and a little Mandarin. She would travel the world and was married to the man of her dreams. When she was about 40, though, she tried cocaine for the first time. Fifteen years later she was living in the small upstairs bedroom above her friend’s hair salon, and was being served chicken soup out the back of a beat up pickup truck.

Linda was one of the few who would smile at us when they received the hot meal. Some didn’t bother to look at us, and others were too preoccupied with balancing the soup and the bread and the juice that they simply couldn’t. Some even yelled at us why we were taking pity on them: did we think we were superior? This was always an elephant in the room. We were in their home, their environment, yet we were the ones serving them? A few men would yell crass comments at us. “Why do you think we need your help” or “get the hell out of my territory”. Nevertheless they always came back for seconds, giving us shy looks as they asked for another serving. We knew they were all grateful, just that some showed it more than others.

We always stayed until both pots were completely empty and there were only crumbs left in the bread bags. It only took about thirty minutes.

As soon as the last bowl was given out, we quickly packed our things and dispersed to get into the cars. If we lingered around for much longer, they would start asking for money. I remember one Sunday my science teacher, Mr. Deboer, joined us. He was new to the experience, so when one of the men asked him in very broken English, “You give to me… dinero? (money)” to heal a wound on his foot, my teacher willingly gave him 30 dollars. When we returned the next Sunday, his wound had gotten worse and he was as drunk as I have ever seen a man. Now we all know money we give them doesn’t benefit anyone.

My car was the last in the line on this particular day. I rode with Ms. Daryanani’s husband and my two friends in Mr. Daryanani’s car, but they were still all up by the truck when I reached the car. It was locked, so I just leaned against it, and waited.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him approach me - slowly. Was it because of his peculiar limp or was it just my imagination? I thought I had seen him earlier in the soup line, but the determined look in his eyes told me otherwise. I was preparing to tell him we had run out of soup, but he didn’t look very hungry. My heart began to race. His gaze was focused on me. Those eyes - so hollow and lost looked at me like I was a diamond in the rough. I was only about ten feet away from the truck, but I felt miles and miles away from everyone - except this man. He was not a regular at our Sunday homeless lunches, and realizing this, beads of sweat began to form on my upper lip.

As soon as I could react, I turned away to start walking up the hill towards everyone. But he had reached me. He grabbed my hands. I could feel the flakey dead skin and open calluses on his palms against my own. My delicate, manicured hands were locked in his filthy, rough fists. I sucked in a shaky breath; I was frozen, and the only movement of my entire body was the beads of sweat forming on my brow and my heart racing 1000 times per minute.

My question was answered when I noticed the small piece of carrot dangling off his scruffy beard: he had been at the lunch. When he smiled at me, I could count a total of five teeth, brown and rotting, with decay built up on each one. I could almost hear the dry skin on his bloody lips crack as his mouth expanded into his grin.

I tried to scream, but nothing would have come out; I felt a dry lump in my throat form.
A wave - no - a tsunami of relief washed over me when he slowly uttered the words, “Sos un angel de Dios. Gracias por la sopa” [You are an angel from God. Thank you for the soup] in a raspy voice. The words struggled to escape his voice box, and it made we wonder what drug he probably took that morning. Nevertheless, as I heard this sentence come out of his graveyard of a mouth, my entire body relaxed. As I began to breath steadily again, the dry lump vanished. I didn’t even care that his gust of onion and marijuana breath engulfed had me.

He gave my hands one last squeeze, reinforcing the fact that his hands were as coarse as concrete, patted my head, rubbing the dead skin all over my ponytail, and turned away. He was already down the hill and around the corner that lead to his small bed on the side of the road where is hot soup awaited his return before I could even say you're welcome.