The main character of the book.

My sad memories of my beloved ones.

The journalist is an elderly person who wants to give himself a crazy night of love with a young girl on the eve of his ninetieth birthday; a decision that ultimately fills his life with a sense of liberation that he had never experienced before. Freedom is something we are all searching for, and in today’s society, women are more than men in pursuit of the experience of liberation, the roots of which are clearly evident in the male-dominated society. But if everything is not done properly, achieving this feeling of liberation can be the starting point for a journey that leads to homelessness. According to the director of one of the centers for caring for abused women, incest in childhood is one of the most common reasons that lead women towards homelessness. According to the latest statistics provided by the Welfare Organization, the average age of women becoming homeless has reached fifteen years. In this report, we sat down with a recovered homeless woman and the director of a center for caring for abused women, and to protect their privacy

***

Marquez in a place in the book.

My melancholic memories of my beloved ones.

She says, “And finally I understood that love is not a spiritual state, but rather fate and destiny.” Continuing this sentence, it can be said that not all people are fortunate. Women who are cardboard sleepers are among those who are not fortunate, and neither the arms of family nor the arms of society are open to them. Need, the cardboard sleeper woman is a series of improvements that she says about the impact of gender on the issue of cardboard sleeping: “A woman suffers more damage in cardboard sleeping because of her gender. Women who are cardboard sleepers are subject to abuse and the humiliation they face is greater than that of men. They do not find a place in society. Unfortunately, in our society, women are mostly ignored and even for healthy women, this phrase is often used, “She’s just a woman!” This phrase is very hurtful. When women are involved in issues like drug use or cardboard sleeping, this problem is exacerbated for them, they are rejected and pushed

Need in response to a question about whether cardboard men and consumers harm them more than regular men in society, says: “I’m not saying I haven’t seen any harm from cardboard men, but I’m saying the most harm has come from people who didn’t have this disease themselves. It’s very painful for me to say this, but I have experienced that a paper towel is worth more than a cardboard woman. Regular men only come for their own pleasure and don’t pay for it. They say you’re a cardboard man and have no one, they harass and bother us, they violate us, they also humiliate us, they hit us and leave.”

Incest; the reason they hide it.

The journalist of the last book of Marquez has his own special moral qualities. He shares neither secrets with anyone nor does he narrate physical and spiritual incidents, because he has learned from his youth that no one is safe. Neda Keshvari, the manager of one of the cardboard box centers for women, talks about what leads these women to cardboard boxes: “Many of the women in our center are now over thirty years old and in their childhood something happened to them that they couldn’t openly protest against. In many cases, they have been victims of incest and when this happens, they don’t have the courage to speak up.” She explains further: “There were girls in this center who were sexually abused by their own father from the ages of seven to fifteen, and on their wedding night they tell their mother about it and only then does the mother realize what happened. The wedding is ruined and the family, to protect their own honor – which exists in our culture – give their daughter

Sexual violence against women living on the streets leads to numerous cases of unwanted pregnancies. Niaz, speaking about the outcome of these pregnancies, says: “It is very common for women to become pregnant during their time living on the streets, and their misfortunes are multiplied by ten. They give birth in alleys and either give the baby up for adoption or keep a small number of them with them, or they sell the baby in their stomachs for very little money because they cannot afford to keep them; yet they don’t even receive that amount.” She goes on to recount the story of one of her friends: “One of my friends was pregnant and didn’t know who the father was, so she sold her babies. She went to the hospital to give birth and when she came back, she was crying and saying that the family only paid for her delivery and took the baby, but didn’t give her the money they were supposed to.” Niaz, in response to the question

He continues to talk about the conditions of childbirth for these women: “The conditions of childbirth for these women are very painful and most of them give birth in the desert and alone. They use white garbage bags and paper towels instead of diapers and in many cases, they don’t even have clothes for the newborn.” But the story doesn’t end there, and even if a man and woman decide to live together in cardboard shelters, the conditions are not suitable for them; “When men and women living in cardboard shelters decide to be together, they can only have a temporary marriage and because most of them don’t have identity documents, there is no possibility for a legal marriage for them.”

“Boys’ style; a solution for protecting the female body.”

“The most painful moments in a woman’s life are when she is forced to share a cardboard bed with a stranger. She responds to the statement that some call these women “prostitutes” by saying, “No woman willingly sleeps with any man during cardboard bed and drug use. I say this confidently because there is no pleasure in it and it happens out of necessity or coercion. They need money or drugs and do not do it willingly because it is not enjoyable. Someone who is drunk feels pain ten times more with just a finger’s pressure, but I have been forced to sell my body multiple times while under the influence and enduring the pain of a foreign body and breaths that made me sick. It has been the most painful moments of my life and I only wished for it to end soon.” She continues, “Worse than all of this was enduring the pain in my body. I had to endure bone pain caused by being drunk. I had to endure the cold sweat and the breath

We ask about the need for places where men have sexual relationships, and he responds: “Normal men come to hangouts, choose a woman they want, take her with them and most of the time they violate them in the car or in the desert. It rarely happens that they take women to their homes, and of course going back to their own home is a different story.” According to him, the danger of being attacked by a group of people is very high when going back home: “We ourselves rarely went home, because maybe out of ten people, only two were decent and that’s why most women didn’t want to go home and they were violated in the car.” He continues to talk about hiding his gender from men: “When I was living on the streets, I made my face look like a boy and dressed like a boy, and few people knew I was a girl. I made my face and hands dirty so they wouldn’t realize I was a girl. I did this

Do not lose hope!

The aged journalist’s book.

My sad memories of my beloved ones.

Somewhere in the book, it whispers to itself: “Love has taught me that people take care of themselves for someone, dress up for someone, and wear perfume for someone, but I have never had anyone.” This is the same deprivation that leads to the return rate of homeless men and women to drugs reaching over ninety percent. It takes several years to get clean and become one of the few homeless women who have the strong will, patience, and good fortune to take steps towards a new life. She talks about the vulnerability and lack of trust towards homeless people: “In my first year of being clean, I was still uncertain and just wanted to reach one year of sobriety. Staying clean is hard work and requires a lot of motivation. I had been kicked out by my family. My brothers had sworn to kill me if they found me, and all of this made me question why I should leave. Who am I leaving for? My family doesn’t accept me, neither do

Neda Keshvari continues to talk about the reasons for women becoming addicted or consumers. She says, “Sometimes men marry a healthy woman and in order to not lose her, they make her a consumer as well. Some also bring drugs out of ignorance. For example, we had women who said that due to period pain or toothache and the advice of others, they became addicted to Tramadol and gradually moved towards other drugs. She believes that vulnerable men are inclined towards vulnerable women and normal men are less likely to be with these women. Sometimes several men enter the lives of these women and each one leads their life towards a worse direction. She talks about one of the women who used to be in the center, saying, “One of the women in this center cried when she was being discharged and said, ‘Don’t let me go.’ She was afraid of the last man in her life because he would take her to beg for money to buy drugs and she would tell us that

A country emphasizes that support for vulnerable women is very weak and says, “Men claim to have the ability to provide housing for women, but not all women need housing and they do not have the courage to complain about these men. The woman I described to you had not told me about the troubles she had faced, and I saw her body during the inspection. I see openly that a woman’s rights are disappearing and due to legal loopholes, there is nothing I can do.” By stating that quitting drugs ultimately happens within a one-month period, she says, “The most important thing is the mental health of individuals. When we ask women about the reason for their first drug use and who they used it with for the first time, which drugs they used for the first time, all of these have roots and if we don’t find the root, even if a person stays clean for twenty years, they will slip again; in fact, the black spot must be found and treated so that the

“A law that ties the hands and feet of hope.”

Marquez in another section of the book.

My melancholic memories of my beloved ones.

In describing the feelings of an old man when it rains heavily at sunset and part of his library gets flooded, he writes: “Just as real events are forgotten, some events that never happened can stay alive in memories as if they did happen.” Perhaps if our lawmakers could also remember the events of the lives of cardboard box dwellers and not replace them with events that never happened, civil institutions in Iran would have a better situation today. The manager of one of the shelters for homeless women asks the lawmakers to let go of their prejudices and says: “For example, if a mother comes here with her child and then decides to leave and we find out that the mother’s illness is so severe that she may sell her child, the law allows us to take the child from her. We cannot take the child from his mother, we have to call the social emergency or inform the welfare department and by the time they arrive, the person wants to take their children and we cannot force them to stay.

He responds to a question about their biggest obstacles to progress by saying, “The obstacles that stand in our way, like institutions, are mostly licenses. The first barrier for all licenses is welfare, and it does not harm our welfare, but the name of the licenses puts us in a different framework. If they give us a general license, we can help the affected individuals in different ways, but when we don’t have this comprehensive license, we can’t do that.” According to him, the process of obtaining activity licenses is so long and exhausting that sometimes it makes people regret the work they want to do. For example, when they name the center “Mother and Child,” they must definitely accept mothers and children and cannot accept only children, or if the name of the center is “Family Center,” they are not allowed to accept single women and the father of the family must also be present at another center. This causes difficulties for those who want to work. Their hands and feet are tied in

A country in response to another question about the reasons for the return of women to the cycle of addiction says: “Many of them are not patient enough to wait for their physical and mental days to end, and some have been forced by their families or friends to come to the center. Some have become emotional at once, and some have been forced by legal centers such as the court to come here, and ultimately some are so hopeless that they do not even stay until their treatment process is complete. We have been working on the issue of cardboard beds for fourteen years and I have seen children who stayed, were the ones who were patient and tired. When we get tired, our minds open up to receive something new, but when we are not tired yet, our pleasures do not allow anything new to replace them.”

Women who are disappearing from our sight.

The elderly journalist in the book.

Sad Memories of Beloved Ones.

I.

In a place it is said: “Life is not like a constantly flowing river, but rather a rare opportunity to turn from one side to the other in a frying pan; meaning that after one side is grilled, you can stay for another ninety years until the other side is also grilled.” However, this opportunity is not divided equally among everyone in life, and homeless women are among those who suffer from this inequality in opportunities. Keshvari, the director of a center for abused women, says about the social acceptance of homeless women: “Even when homeless women clean themselves, they face a new tragedy, which is society not accepting them. When a man becomes addicted, he can leave it and go back to his family, but they don’t do that for women and instead they kick them out. If women have a place to live and can stay there, they are lucky, but if they don’t have a place to seek refuge, they are forced to return to the park and become part

Factories that are changing.

Marquez in the book.

My sad memories of my beloved ones.

Text: “The first changes happen so slowly that they are barely noticeable, and a person still sees themselves from within as they always have, but others see the changes from the outside. This is what Niaz talks about in regards to personal changes during addiction. According to him, a user has one personality during use and another during sobriety: “During use, we have a false personality and in reality, it is the substance that rules our brain and gives orders on what to do.” He believes that the biggest change for someone who becomes sober is to let go of their false personality along with the substances. Niaz continues, “The substances may leave, but the personality remains and this is the difficult stage of sobriety that must be taken step by step from being a user.” Statistics show that only four percent of people who attempt to quit do not return to the cycle of addiction and start a new life. According to Niaz, the false personality always exists within them, but

According to this woman, cardboard bed is a form of recovery, and addiction is a disease. She says, “A person addicted to coffee, if they stop drinking it, will be tempted whenever they see a cup of coffee. Similarly, a drug addict, after getting clean, will be 100% tempted when they see drugs, and this temptation even comes to their mind and they go for it. We must educate the addict on what they can do in such situations.” She continues to talk about her personal experience with these changes, saying, “During my recovery, I learned that I am my own best doctor and no one can treat me better than myself. I was the one who helped myself; I reached out and asked for help. This kind of asking has two main differences from all other asking, and that is patience and listening.” She describes this type of asking as follows: “In the past, my asking was not accompanied by patience and an open mind. In the past,

The need for experience in returning to femininity after deciding to leave, says: “The belt was my biggest weakness and I thought it was a symbol of masculinity. I was used to walking with my hands open and speaking with vulgar language, but with love and patience, they took all of this away from me and I wanted it to be taken away from me. I was used to standing with my hands in my pockets and this posture gave me power, but when they said to change this posture, I said okay and I was the same person who, in the hangout, would get into a fight with anyone who talked to me. The difference is in wanting it and when you want to change.” According to her, her eye-catching behavior was not forced and she would grab her own wrist and as soon as she used vulgar language or changed her posture, she would scold herself.

In response to the question of how the violence they face in the streets affects their desire and motivation to leave, he says: “The violence we see only intensifies our desire to not want to leave. I hated men. My main goal was to seek revenge from men and I had no good feelings towards them. I wanted to bring any disaster upon them and wherever I could, I would bring harm to them. I hated men because I had been hurt by them and that’s why I had become a man myself. I hated being myself. When a normal person would come towards me, it felt like my enemy was coming towards me. I hated those who distributed food among the cardboard boxes and I would ask them why they come to the hangouts and show off. What do you know about what we go through here? Take your food and leave, but they wouldn’t go and wouldn’t say anything.” He believes that it takes time to build trust and that society has taken away their trust

Unborn children, lives left unfulfilled.

The old man is a journalist.

My sad memories of my beloved ones.

Sometimes, the little girl who worked in the button-making workshop and was celebrating her 90th birthday, would write sentences on the mirror. One of these sentences was: “My dear girl, we are alone in this world.” This sentence has a deeper meaning for women and children who have experienced sleeping on cardboard boxes. Neda Keshvari believes that sometimes a traumatic event, such as a child being eaten by a flood and the rights of the child being violated by their own siblings, creates a void in them. She continues: “The parents did not realize that they have violated the rights of their children and created this void, and now they cannot fill it.” According to her, many children of divorced parents turn to drug use, and the parents say that they have raised them well, but they do not look at what they have done to their child before they were taken away. The manager of one of the centers for vulnerable women says: “Unfortunately, families do not accept these cases

Book.

My sad memories of my beloved ones.

This sentence concludes with: “Finally, real life arrived; with a rescued heart and condemned to death, with a love full of excitement in every day after my hundredth birthday.” Life for an elderly journalist unfolds in the final days of his life, and he experiences a kind of liberation that has been unknown to him in the past ninety years. What the elderly man experiences is the dream of the wounded. They are in search of a new life, freed from one bond and finding themselves in another, and now if this woundedness is mixed with femininity, it brings even more suffering and fewer opportunities; opportunities that families, laws, and society all somehow withhold from them. Until the wounded individual does not accept themselves and they do not reach out with love to the socially wounded, the doors to happiness will not open and their days will be consumed with regret for not experiencing liberation and will be lost in the wind.

Note:

Taken from the Persian translation of the last book of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

My sad memories of my beloved ones.