Ricardo Pereira, Homeless Pilgrim at 73

I met this man everyday for two weeks at the door of the small church located in the Cathedral Square in Cádiz. Every morning I had a chat with him and every time his situation seemed to go from bad to worse. He had been a sailor or a harbour worker all his life. A few years ago he got into an altercation with his family and got kicked out of his own house in that city. He had been sleeping out in the open under the big area surrounding the back section of the cathedral. Some nights it was impossible for him to sleep: too many drunks, too many thieves, too many druggies with knives and too many fights all around him made it hard for him to have a proper rest. He has all but one single tooth left in his mouth and the nuns at the charity auspice where he went for his daily meal had to make him some vegetable puree because otherwise he could not eat.
He is a decent, soft-spoken man who allowed me to photograph him for the portrait on top of this page. The lower picture I got him whilst he was trying desperately to get some sleep as he sat at the entrance to the church, at eight in the morning, having been unable to sleep a wink the night before due to the aforementioned shenanigans of other rowdy homeless men. His little basket before him had a few coins, all copper, and not much else.