Nutrition, health and hygiene during the Civil War
How people got their basic needs


Jéssica París Alderete
2º educacion infantil A
CES Don Bosco- Social Science


What would do to eat? That is a question that perhaps none of us have asked, but was present in the times of war and post-civil war. So this research is based on nutrition, hygiene and health, focusing on the study of one of the person who best can explain that, my grandmother Raimunda López Barroso, born in 1932 in the Venta's neighborhood, who lived in oneself the Spanish Civil War of 1936. The Spanish Civil War was a social conflict, political and military took place in Spain between the passing of 17 and 18 of July 1936 and the last part of war signed by Francisco Franco on April 1, 1939. The country suffered a major change, because men had to fight had to lie to women working and caring for the family.

At that time, it was normal the absence of family, death or enlistment in the army. In the case of my grandmother, as she recounts: "My father had just died because of pneumonia, my four brothers were fighting in Huesca and I had to care for my sick mother and my uncle". And at the age of 6 years she left school to take care of household duties and care for sick family members, why she cannot read and write. Given the above, and the economic needs of the family, my grandmother had to start working to feed his family.

Therefore, to eat, was necessary to work. The only work she was able to find was the rag-picker. So she explains me what was her job, her lifestyle. "I had to go door to door with a cart filled of cubes, picking up trash, and separating the different materials such as coal used, which I then sold, the rags to make me clothes and food waste, with which I fed to pigs and chickens had in my yard" she said.

Although they raised the animals to sell them, they could eat those animals? If only it were so easy ... Of all pigs raised, only one could be killed for their own benefit, the rest were sold. And the chickens, they could only take one egg a week for lunch, the rest, were also sold.
So what did they eat? And my grandmother, with a smile on his face, said: "My uncle went every day walk to San Fernando to buy a stick of bread for each, and I went to the black market to buy vegetables and greens to stews ". The menu there was no meat, no chicken, there was nothing. It was based on porridge made ​​from potato peelings. Moreover, to keep the pork, they fried at the time of slaughter, and put them in pots filled with pig's own fat as a preservative.

Therefore I add a very important issue, the drink. Where did they obtain the water? What about milk? And that's where my grandmother puts more emphasis in the telling: "I had to walk three miles to fill buckets of water so they can drink. And if we wanted to drink milk, we had to wait for the goat had babies”. And so it happened every day, with two buckets connected by a rope that was placed on her shoulders.

Leaving aside nutrition, I focus on the hygiene, especially in personal hygiene, which, as my grandmother told me they had to draw water, put it in pans of zinc and make it warm in the sun and thus be able to wash. The soap had to manufacture it themselves, but there was a big problem. "We needed to use oil to make soap, but we could only buy a quart per person each day, so we had to take every drop of oil used to make soap," said my grandmother. Who could say this, with how easy it is to open up the bottle of shower gel and pass the sponge...


And last but not least, since it is the most important issue, the health. Nutrition was based on porridge and potato peelings in the garbage collected, the water was carried in buckets for miles, the hygiene was rudimentary as they could not wash every day, the life was too hard, so is easy to understand that the quality of life was low, especially if we add the deaths on the battlefield. The society was sinking into the mud. There was so much misery. There was no doctor to go if you had not a wad of cash under the mattress. No medicine with which to heal the sick. Before, people were dying from diseases that now are cured with a pill.


Even so, and as a personal conclusion, I must say that for much misery, poverty, sadness ... every person who has experienced that stage. Every story that came out of the mouth of my grandmother, was a bit of her soul, was a memory of her life, it was very hard, but she is proud of having lived it. And I am very proud to have the grandmother I have. And thanks to her, I understand how hard it can become life, and I have to be satisfied to live in these times, that even if they look hard at the end will be better.