DUSHANBE (UCAN) -- Sister Ramola starts her day early with prayer and weeding.

Whatever the weather, the Pakistani Missionaries of Charity nun is out in her congregation's new vegetable garden every morning, pulling out weeds and otherwise taking care of the plants that provide a needed nutritional boost.

With around 100 poor people turning up for meals twice a week at the nuns' house, the vegetables on this 18-square-meter vegetable plot do not go far, but they help.

"We had some free space in front of our house and decided to make the maximum use of it," Sister Ramola explained. "These vegetables help us in cooking food for the poor and homeless people, and for our own needs."

At a time when food prices are going up, the vegetable garden the nuns began in March, where eggplants, lettuce, dill, celery, parsley, spring onions and garlic now flourish, keeps costs down as well as provides more balanced nutrition. This lets the nuns' limited funds go that much further.

"I've never counted how much it takes us to organize one lunch in our soup kitchen, but it is roughly US$200," estimated Sister Rosarius, the head of the mission. "We use our own funds with help from our parishioners and friends," she told UCA News.

"We used to give the poor people money or clothes but many of our visitors are drinkers and they sell it to buy drink," the Indian missioner added. "Therefore, we decided to help them with food."

For the poor people whose health may not be good, one vegetable in particular is a useful weapon against illness.

Indian Sister Antuanetta told UCA News they fortify the soup kitchen visitors with garlic from the garden, which she said is "very good" for dealing with colds and similar illnesses.

During the winter that ended last month, the worst in 25 years, power cuts practically paralyzed the soup kitchen's operation and kept people from leaving their homes. But now that the weather has improved, the poor have returned.

Feeding the growing number of people who come every Wednesday and Sunday for a nourishing meal of soup and bread is increasingly difficult, according to Alena Babaeva, a Catholic volunteer.

Babaeva told UCA News on May 11 that they were feeding 120-130 people that day, a Sunday, compared to about 100 the previous Wednesday. "Sometimes we receive more people," she said with some concern.

The four nuns of the congregation founded by Blessed Teresa of Kolkata, two from India and one each from Pakistan and Kenya, have been running a soup kitchen for more than 10 years. They also visit the elderly and sick, and provide medicine for poor people.

Space for their hungry visitors is a problem, Sister Rosarius admitted, "Now we can feed people in our dining room, but sometimes when there are too many people we put tables under the awning."

Getting a good meal is the reason why Marat Islomov visits once a week.

The 47-year-old Muslim, currently unemployed and homeless, told UCA News, "I don't work at the moment, and the sisters' house is the only opportunity for me to eat well."

Another regular face at the soup kitchen is 64-year-old Guliam Khalifeev. "I never thought I would stand in a queue for a plate of soup," said the former salesman, who has been coming for three years. "But such is my life that I am in need now, and I pray to God for the sisters who feed me and others like me and help us survive."

The Missionaries of Charity community, a handful of Incarnate Word priests from Argentina and a few Servants of the Lord and Holy Virgin of Matara nuns who assist them, and about 250 local laypeople form the small Catholic presence in Tajikistan, where 96 percent of the 6.5 million people are Muslims.

In March 2007, Tajik Minister for Economic Development Ghuomjon Boboyev was reported as saying that 57 percent of Tajiks live below the poverty line, and that the figure would be higher were it not for money repatriated by the many who go abroad -- mainly to Russia -- to work.

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