Slept luxuriously here at the Barcelo (such a comfortable bed! Dry! No bugs!), woke up, had breakfast, and was ready by 8 to head to the church and unpack/organize stuff. We created boxes and first aid kits to go to the villages that we visited, and tried to put things away in a way that would make sense for the next group (in February).
For the afternoon, we had an appointment at Camino Seguro, which we got to (after a few miscommunications and stresses in getting there, and a fast stop at McDonald’s). I was not quite ready for the emotional rollercoaster that is inherent in visiting Camino Seguro and the Guatemala City dump.
We viewed the dump from above- even from a distance it smelled horrible. There were packs of vultures hanging out and circling in the sky over the dump. Our tour guide, Freddy, was formerly a professional soccer player in Guate, and has been involved in non-profit work here for many years. He was telling us awful stories about the war here, being poor in Guatemala, and life in the dump. Meanwhile, we are walking through above ground graves, listening to funeral music (there was a well-to-do funeral going on not that far away), smelling the horrible stench of the dump, and watching as mobs of people fight over the trash that is being dumped out of garbage trucks down below.
The dump is located in a sort of ravine, and there are several rivers under the dump. This creates a very unsafe environment- there have been several sinkholes where people have died; there have also been explosions from the methane gas. In recent years, children have been banned from collecting in the dump- some children are lucky, and get to go to Camino Seguro- but it sounds like there is a long waiting list. Camino Seguro serves 600 kids; I think the whole dump community is about 50,000 people.
We drove through some streets where the collectors live- large piles of plastic bottles, or broken plastic stools, or piles of cardboard, were all bundled up inside and just outside of people’s homes. The collectors work 12-15 hours in a day, and sell the plastic/glass/whatever for maybe $1 per day. Shockingly, they have to pay the city I think Q45 a year for the privilege of collecting in the dump.
We then visited Camino Seguro and watched film footage of people living in the dump- without electricity, water, or real toilets; eating food found in the dump, including meat that was a week old- it was horrifying. We also watched interviews with Hanley Denning- a young teacher from Maine, who saw the need to help kids in the dump- went back and sold all her possessions and moved to Guate, and started Camino Seguro, I think around 1997. Tragically, she was killed in a car accident about 3 years ago.
The whole day was so sad- I think all of us were on the verge of crying throughout the whole tour.
What Camino Seguro is doing, though, was uplifting- they provide meals and school for kids age 1-about 20. They provide a lot of free playtime as well. They have programs for the parents, and we were able to buy jewelry made by many of the mothers participating in the program- the beads for the jewelry were made from things collected in the dump. This part of the program has been so successful that the women make enough money from the jewelry that they don’t have to collect in the dump anymore.
The actual buildings for Camino Seguro were lovely- a place to take pride in- landscaping was actually done by grad students in landscaping from the UW!
Anyway, it was depressing, eye-opening, and hopeful to see. Here is the website for more information:
http://www.safepassage.org/
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