Helping the homeless

I had never thought I would gain the courage.
Back home I could have felt more at ease to do something like this.
But no, I did it here, far from home, in a foreign country.
I am relieved for it was easy... I had expected problems between the homeless, or with the staff.
But all happened smoothly and I felt sad and happy afterwards.

Well, one can imagine why...
I was very tired afterwards, physically and mentally. The work consisted in serving dinner for the homeless, and cleaning the room afterwards.
There were around 100 homeless I think.
Some were very old, others very young. Most of them were so thankful for this warm meal, that they looked at me with tremendous gratitude in their eyes.

After eating and repeating, some wanted more chicken or cake, or even coffee.
I served as allowed 2 plates of chicken, no more than that.
But then I realized, there was enough food and there would be tons of leftovers.

When I started to serve coffee I no longer cared. "Who wants more? Ok, you want 2 cups. Fine. And you? You already have 2!! Are you sure you want one more??? Very well here you go, but I must advise you it is rather unhealthy that much coffee!"

If only I had got my hands on the last pieces of cake... there were for sure more than 40 pieces left, and the staff argued that those could not be served, because then every one would want more cake, and there were only 40 pieces left - not enough for all.
I felt sad. Denying a little bit more cake to those people, was really sad.
After they went home I even ate one piece, still feeling guilty, that I was eating it, and not some other nice old man that had asked me so gently for it.

I barely had contact with them, I exchanged few words with some, but did not really get to know any of them.
Vienna is a small city, I am sure I will be meeting some of those men and women on the streets again.