JEDDAH: A very old woman, probably in her 80s, has reportedly seen restaurants and shops come and go, and even a police center disappear from the Al-Fouwaleen Street, where she has been seen by eyewitness begging for years. Moreover, local media reported, the elderly woman spends nearly 14 hours daily begging.

“People have seen this woman walk mind-boggling distances daily. It looks like a daily marathon walk via the King Fahd Road before the zuhr or noon prayer, heading toward a mosque near the National Museum where she seeks alms,” local media has reported, quoting sources.

After all the worshippers have left the mosque, she walks toward other strategic points for begging, and then returns by midnight to her home at Abi Althanaa Al-Baghdadi Street in Al Wisham District, the report said.

For years she has been walking these streets carrying a blue color plastic bag with the word Al-Faisiliyah written on it in Arabic and English, containing food and water offered to her by pedestrians, along with a few riyals. According to eyewitnesses, years ago, the woman used to walk with her back straight. “However, now she is forced to bend forward while walking. She is probably the only woman in Saudi Arabia, and perhaps in the Gulf states, who walks so much with plastic white slippers on.”

Asked how she is doing, she only says, “Give me the riyals and walk away.” One wonders if any of the charities spotted her walking on the Al-Fouwaleen Street and offered to take her to a shelter or elderly home.

Many luxury cars are seen stopping near her and their occupants, especially women or children stepping down to offer charity to her. However, nobody seems to have ever asked her where she lives or how her health is.

The woman neither has a mobile phone nor a watch. Her legs tell the history of the neighborhoods before asphalt covered the streets and buildings and towers were erected on both sides. What the woman probably needs now is mediation by some officials so that she can spend the remaining time of her life in peace.