Trash
January 17, 2007 | posted by Braddigan | 9 Comments

i'm not entirely sure where to begin because i don't actually remember a start to all this... Rather it's been just one little step at a time into a world unlike any i've ever known, and it's all been moving fast... my education in the dump that is, and the building of this new community of family and friends with whom i now have the privilege to share my life with in and among the heaps... so it's every month or so that i'm back down in Nicaragua now, in La Chureca walking along side some of the families there, getting to know the both dark and beautiful reality of their lives... And it's the dustiest kids that i find there with their lightning smiles and unsinkable imaginations that have the strongest hold on my heart, and their fingerprints are just all over my life now- they are stealing their food, fun, and hope from trash- and they're giving me the teaching of my life.

so with every trip i have yet another duffel of stories to unpack and storehouse of photos and memories to share... so many snapshots of this simple yet tragic life of a people that have nothing other than trash to convert into currency, and an endless amount of darkness and light battling at every moment- what has distinguished the last few months' trips though, is that every memory and image is shrouded in smoldering fire and chalky white smoke... it is the dry season and there are more fires and smoke on the horizon than ever before, from burning tires and plastic above ground to spontaneous combustion below from all the natural gas that has built up in the rotting... i've witnessed more corruption, joy, sickness, dirt encrusted smiles, glue huffing, and new little babies than ever before too. how about this one? wild cows and dogs walking alongside a young mother and her kids. she is 9 months pregnant and still working the trash daily looking for anything of value... vultures, fires, and smoke are her context as she sifts through garbage up to her knees carrying a box of plastic... her name is Damaris and her kids are now our kids, her struggle is now our struggle. la lucha. and man is she beautiful in the way that she carries herself.

i fought a handful of laborers with words and prayers in broken spanish who were told to drop a load of old tires just inside the entrance to the dump, right next to a little community of families living in their cardboard and tin shanties... i've never had so much adrenaline inspiring and confusing my spanish, but i got the point across. 2 more minutes into the dump and these tires wouldn't have been a threat to anyone, yet there they were insisting it was their right to dump them quickly... we offered to pay them to load them back up and into the center of the dump, but nothing. so they just dumped all the tires right across from the families just a few feet from some existing fires and drove off, a few of them laughing. i was unsure of the situation but to my core convinced of our purpose, and i was flat out pissed... so we stayed and found a man w a small truck that lived inside the dump and paid him to relocate the tires... and we also saw the weather stir as our emotions ran high as a tempest of rain clouds came in out of nowhere (during dry season?) and whipped up a 5 minute storm which helped us attack the open flames... it took us an hour or so, and we were covered in dirt and black flaked rubber, when all was said and done... but we were able to see these tires burned away from the hearts, heads, hands, and feet of the people that we'd grown to know and love in that community.

trash and people don't go together. these stories are straight from my journal. this stuff is real. thanks for being willing to open your eyes and imagination up to this place... more to come-

Labels: charity, lachureca, lovelightandmelody, nicaragua