Magdalena Zegarra Chiappori

Mar 13, 2024 | sapiens.org | Magdalena Zegarra Chiappori |Keridwen Cornelius |Michael Perez |Rick Schulting

✽As we ate breakfast in her room at La Merced shelter, Anita (a pseudonym) described her plight and that of her fellow residents: “You know, Magdalena? We have come to die here. There is no possibility for a better life within these walls. It’s all death. We are trash, and nobody wants us.”Anita’s words hit me emotionally.

Feb 21, 2024 | nacla.org | Magdalena Zegarra Chiappori

“I would rather die than live in this institution,” Doris confessed when I visited her in November of last year at the nursing home where she is currently living. A few weeks before, she had been accepted as a resident in a dilapidated shelter for older adults in Lima, Peru. When asked if she felt relieved because she was no longer homeless, she said: “No. This is like prison; confinement is killing me. We are invisible old people here.