Working on the dump
Rosemary Emmett describes her experience with the ‘dump families’ of Managua, Nicaragua
The cool hours from four until eight in the morning have come to an end. The air is already hot and humid as our little van, laden with bags of rice and beans, leaves the marketplace. We four Friends prepare ourselves for another busy day on the city of Managua’s garbage dump.
Since I retired I have spent several winters in Central America, where Friends work with a number of vital and diverse projects. Nicaragua is the poorest country on the continent and the second poorest in the western hemisphere (after Haiti). The Municipal Landfill Site (its official name) is home to 1,500 people who live lives that others would consider utterly inhuman.
Amongst the garbage
After driving to a city-edge shantytown, we pass through the tall steel gates of the three-square-mile dump. It is a notorious location, avoided by everyone except those who call it their own (though like other NGO vehicles, our unmarked Quaker van is known and tolerated). Our job here is to feed some of the children who work as scavengers, accompanying the adults to look for any glass, metal or other garbage that might have a very minimum value. Anything worthwhile has already been taken by the garbage truck drivers, who come in every half hour to empty out.
It is a harrowing setting. It must be seen to be believed. We drive along a dusty track between great grey mountains of filthy, stinking rubbish interspersed with small areas of lunar-like landscapes ‘grazed’ by the occasional skeletal animal. The stench, filth, dust, smoke, mud and pools of toxic water, together with the steamy heat and noise, are overpowering. Like a vast army of ants, the masses of workers, including little children, run, bend, pick up and carry in all directions
These children live amongst vermin-infested garbage, are clothed in garbage and eat garbage. Last year three of them thought they’d found chocolate and then experienced a violently painful death. It was rat poison. They sleep in loose ‘family’ arrangements, in shacks put together from bits of scrap such as cloth, cardboard and wood. Water enters the dump from the shantytown via one illicit hose – through a hole in the fence. As we drive along, our hearts lift: outside one of the huts there is an improvised washing line, a short length of cable between two poles, and on it hangs a small white blouse, white socks and a blue skirt. It’s the home of one of ‘our’ children.
ProNica
Quakers fund the feeding station here via ProNica, a Quaker NGO whose mission is to support projects that build relationships between the peoples of Nicaragua and North America. ProNica is under the spiritual care of the Southeastern Yearly Meeting, USA, and Friend Lillian Hall is the in-country coordinator. The food on offer is a hot dish of rice, beans, occasionally a little meat, and a glass of juice six days a week. It is the only food they have. The cost is 70p a day per child. Friends also undertake to supply school uniforms for the fifty-plus children who are fortunate enough to receive education. The free, daily two hours of basic ‘3R’ lessons are given in the nearby school. It was built, and is run, by a Christian organisation. All the children need the same lessons, whether they are eight or thirteen years old.
A dedicated Nicaraguan worker acts as a go-between for us, trying to convince dump families of the benefits of schooling and meals. Unfortunately, they very often prefer to have the youngsters working for them in the garbage.
Affection and esteem
When we arrive at the feeding station – a tin-roofed concrete pavement area – some children awaiting us run to the van and hang on to our arms, our waists and our bags, so eager are they for affection. At 12.30pm the morning shift arrives from school. They are in their uniforms and show us the same affection. After lunch they will go to work. Uniforms play a major part in raising the self-esteem of the children by giving them an identity as a ‘schoolchild’, the same as the other children ‘outside’ that they’ve heard about.
It is late January and there’s concern over a shortfall of funds. This has resulted in no money for shoes for the new term beginning 1 February. As in many countries, parents or others must buy uniforms and supplies, without which there is no admission to school. We held Light sessions… and three days later a cheque arrived, via ProNica, from a supporting Canadian Rotary Club.
It’s for the exact amount required!
Every child shows some effects of living and working in these surroundings: major chest complaints, eye problems, infections, bites, rickets, cuts, wounds, constant scratching, bloated bellies of malnutrition…
It is such a joy to see the children happy and engaged during the feeding and learning hours, away from the horrors of their working and living conditions.
Life changing
I am living at Quaker House, a three-bedroomed bungalow in town that houses volunteers and visitors. Each bedroom contains six bunk beds. There are three showers and the kitchen is communal, so it’s always busy at breakfast and supper cooking times! At $10 a night, it’s a bargain. Food shopping facilities are nearby. It’s on the back patio of this small centre, the fan whirring above our heads, that we share our Sunday morning silent Meeting for Worship and hold the projects in God’s Light.
University and high school groups visit from the USA. All the students say their ten-day tour has changed their lives forever. Earlier in my stay I’d spent time in the adjacent shantytown itself. Here, Friends have helped establish facilities to assist with problems such as domestic violence, addictions, prostitution, child abuse and unemployment. Later, I saw the country farm schools for former glue-sniffing street children where Friends provide lunch funding for the girls’ school.
The world’s wealthy
Dear Friends at home, let us never forget that we are among the world’s wealthy. We have a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs, clean, running water and good medical/dental care, education, sanitation, clothing, roads, transport, material comforts and – oh – innumerable other things for which we must give constant thanks.
For further information: ProNica.org
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