Story from Nicaragua
The heat of La Chureca can overwhelm you. The gases rise up on either side of you, and seemingly random piles of garbage release toxic plumes of smoke into the air. The methane caught beneath the surface could burst into flames at any moment, engulfing the entire dump, and killing thousands. Right beneath the surface, like a physical, society-wide virus like HIV, sits a death threat. You trudge up the narrow path up the steep side of garbage, one hand holding a wet handkerchief to your mouth so you can breathe, and the other one swinging to catch you if you fell. You don't want to fall. The ground is littered with shards of broken glass. If you fell, you'd tumble down the entire slope. Your body would be full of glass, and diseases. The nearest hospital isn't for a long time because, after all, the poorest of the poor must live on the fringes of the fringe of the city. A woman is walking ahead of you, her long heavy skirt dragging in the dirt, a plastic bag in one hand and a sharp pole in the other. She's only beginning her day at work, and it's unlikely she'll make more than a dollar today. By the time you reach the top, she's disappeared into the comings and goings of thousands of other Nicas who arrive for work.
You walk past a flat area where an old man is burning tires. His face is black and dripping. He burns tires to get the metal---the metal sells for 40 centabos, Nicaraguan cents, if you get a certain weight. Burning tires is a sign of desperate times in La Chureca. To your right, you overlook the small slum area that comprises the homes of the people in La Chureca. On top of the hill you've just climbed, you see the houses of the poorest of the poorest of the poor--they live in tents. Black plastic tents tattered by the wind. Two naked children stand outside, their bellies distended by worms and malnutrition. They stare at you with their blackened skin, sucking their thumbs. The smaller one--he looks about four but is likely seven years old--has a thick rubbery scar on the outside of his thigh. He fell or was burned sometime before. Nobody snaps a photo. Nobody wants to be a tourist anymore. You are shaking already, because you still have one more level to climb to see the garbage, the garbage that goes for miles in every direction.
When you reach that level, the first thing you notice is that the stillness of the tire-burning flat is gone. Trucks of varying sizes roar past you, flying down a makeshift road. People hang off the sides of the truck, the back of the truck, and race alongside the truck. Boys and men, seven to seventy, working alongside each other in fierce competition. This is the ultimate game of Survivor--the winner goes to sleep at night, the loser's family doesn't have time to mourn. Heaps and mounds of garbage surround you, and you step delicately, afraid to hurt yourself or damage something potentially useful to the people around you. Cows, horses and dogs graze amongst the trash, and hundreds of black vultures swarm in the air. They circle, never landing, as if even the vultures cannot land on this garbage. A large pile of tires is being burned, thick high towers of dark black smoke fill the air. A herd of cows grazes right underneath it and as you watch, one cow wanders closer and is obscured by the smoke. A woman dressed in green stops picking plastics and just sits down with a vacant expression, so vacant that you are too frightened to approach her. You glance around, overwhelmed and needing to detach from the reality around you. Vultures sit on top of a hill of garbage and you stare at them. One of them stands up. Stands up. You've just mistaken a twelve year old boy for a vulture. He stands there in the garbage, his pole in one hand, between the vultures. Someone snaps a picture. His head turns and he walks across the garbage towards you. He strikes you, in that moment, as nearly Christ-like. He does not sink in the garbage, merely floating above it with his feather light feet. His body is narrow and upright and his pole looks like a staff. He comes closer, his tired face curious, but when you call to him in Spanish, he doesn't give a flicker of recognition and he stops walking closer. He watches you, the white one, from a distance.
At some point you glance down--someone's lost photo sits on the edge of the road. Chemicals have discolored it, but you see the faces of two healthy Nica children holding hands in front of a house. The illiterate workers of La Chureca must have also seen the photo, and you wonder, you have to wonder, what they thought about the two children neatly dressed in front of a concrete home with a gate. You wonder.
People shout at you as you walk by, "God bless you, God bless you, Thank you!" and for the first time, you bite back tears. It does not make sense, their gratitude, for you have done nothing but stand as a spectator to their daily lives. Nothing but stand as a spectator.
You walk past a flat area where an old man is burning tires. His face is black and dripping. He burns tires to get the metal---the metal sells for 40 centabos, Nicaraguan cents, if you get a certain weight. Burning tires is a sign of desperate times in La Chureca. To your right, you overlook the small slum area that comprises the homes of the people in La Chureca. On top of the hill you've just climbed, you see the houses of the poorest of the poorest of the poor--they live in tents. Black plastic tents tattered by the wind. Two naked children stand outside, their bellies distended by worms and malnutrition. They stare at you with their blackened skin, sucking their thumbs. The smaller one--he looks about four but is likely seven years old--has a thick rubbery scar on the outside of his thigh. He fell or was burned sometime before. Nobody snaps a photo. Nobody wants to be a tourist anymore. You are shaking already, because you still have one more level to climb to see the garbage, the garbage that goes for miles in every direction.
When you reach that level, the first thing you notice is that the stillness of the tire-burning flat is gone. Trucks of varying sizes roar past you, flying down a makeshift road. People hang off the sides of the truck, the back of the truck, and race alongside the truck. Boys and men, seven to seventy, working alongside each other in fierce competition. This is the ultimate game of Survivor--the winner goes to sleep at night, the loser's family doesn't have time to mourn. Heaps and mounds of garbage surround you, and you step delicately, afraid to hurt yourself or damage something potentially useful to the people around you. Cows, horses and dogs graze amongst the trash, and hundreds of black vultures swarm in the air. They circle, never landing, as if even the vultures cannot land on this garbage. A large pile of tires is being burned, thick high towers of dark black smoke fill the air. A herd of cows grazes right underneath it and as you watch, one cow wanders closer and is obscured by the smoke. A woman dressed in green stops picking plastics and just sits down with a vacant expression, so vacant that you are too frightened to approach her. You glance around, overwhelmed and needing to detach from the reality around you. Vultures sit on top of a hill of garbage and you stare at them. One of them stands up. Stands up. You've just mistaken a twelve year old boy for a vulture. He stands there in the garbage, his pole in one hand, between the vultures. Someone snaps a picture. His head turns and he walks across the garbage towards you. He strikes you, in that moment, as nearly Christ-like. He does not sink in the garbage, merely floating above it with his feather light feet. His body is narrow and upright and his pole looks like a staff. He comes closer, his tired face curious, but when you call to him in Spanish, he doesn't give a flicker of recognition and he stops walking closer. He watches you, the white one, from a distance.
At some point you glance down--someone's lost photo sits on the edge of the road. Chemicals have discolored it, but you see the faces of two healthy Nica children holding hands in front of a house. The illiterate workers of La Chureca must have also seen the photo, and you wonder, you have to wonder, what they thought about the two children neatly dressed in front of a concrete home with a gate. You wonder.
People shout at you as you walk by, "God bless you, God bless you, Thank you!" and for the first time, you bite back tears. It does not make sense, their gratitude, for you have done nothing but stand as a spectator to their daily lives. Nothing but stand as a spectator.