On Tuesdays and Thursdays, at 9 a.m., I attend a Pilates class with a remarkable soul: Carlota Manrique, an unstoppable and committed woman. From the first moment of the Ukrainian invasion, she knew that "doing nothing" was not an option. She could have hidden behind the excuse of how bad things had been for gyms during the pandemic. She could have thought that helping people in a far-away country was neglecting her own family ... but she didn’t. And here's a spoiler: her daughter couldn't be happier or more proud of her mother's decision.
She contacted an association to offer an apartment to refugees—her second home, located on the Galician coast (northwestern Spain). There, she could accommodate four people. The association she contacted assigned her one of the families in need of help: two adult women and a little girl. But she was asked to go pick them up in Valencia, on the opposite side of Spain And, with the same diligence and energetic approach that she transmits while doing squats, she got to work and planned her trip to Valencia.
The costs of this mission were covered with the help of several friends, students, relatives of friends, etc. They collaborated to defray the expenses of the trip, each according to their ability. They flew from Santiago de Compostela to Valencia, and there, at the airport itself, they rented a 7-seater van to return.
The first moments were very difficult, Carlota tells us. "They had seen and lived through atrocious situations. They were afraid that the child would be taken away from them. They didn't want to go with us to Galicia. They had a crisis of anxiety ..."
"With the help of Google translator, we tried to convey the calm, security and peace that the horror of the war had taken away from them.”
The welcome from the townspeople
"The welcome from the people of the village was and continues to be magnificent: a local restaurant is feeding them until they settle in, some other people take care of their shopping, and so on. With a little bit of good intentions from everyone, we can move mountains."
Thus ended my conversation with Carlota Manrique, and I agree with her. But I also want to say that, in life as in a Pilates class, we need to see someone doing the exercise to be able to repeat it. Keep doing the right thing in front of us, giving us an example.
