Visiting the Managua Dump Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit The Guardian Weekly 17-5-2001 Letter from Nicaragua City of rubbish gives refuge to society's outcasts Josephine Borghi "This place has annihilated any form of normal life, culture, nature," Don Esteban said. I had to agree with him. We were at what appeared to be the end of the world 0- the Managua rubbish dump. I had arrived in Nicaragua a few days earlier, to work as a consultant to the Instituto Centro-Americano de la Salud, a non- governmental organisation that works with adolescent inhalantes (glue sniffers) and female sex workers, to increase access to health services by providing vouchers for free treatment in selected NGO and private health centres. Now, with the project field worker, Don Esteban, and the driver, Don Torrentes, I was making my first visit to the rubbish dump, to familiarise myself with the home of some of the glue sniffers they work with. We veered off the main road on to a dirt track, and found ourselves ploughing through hill upon hill of garbage. The waste of the whole department of the capital, Managua, ends up in this great city of rubbish. Within this mass of debris I could make out old bits of cars and plastic bags. In the few open spaces between these rotting piles of junk I could discern a sandy-coloured wasteland. As we drove deeper in, all form of recognisable life disappeared: grass, trees, flowers, leaves, birds (bar those associated with the annihilation of life, such as the vulture, or the seagull, whose cry at sea is similarly eerie). It felt dehumanised, and its anarchy was frightening. Don Torrentes told me to take off any jewellery, lock the truck door and close the window. Even the sky seemed different, apparently reflecting this desolate site, a murky greyish brown. The clouds had disappeared, replaced by a toxic-looking dust emanating from the waste. Now I could make out the figures of people wandering through the huge piles of debris. It was hard to imagine what they might be doing here; why anyone would come here. But here they were, and seemingly not by accident. So somehow this was part of their familiar environment, part of their daily routine. As we got closer, the shapes became faces, among them a young guy, apparently mad, or just high, making distorted signals at the truck to stop, like a desperate cry for help. Don Torrentes made a "no" sign through the closed window, and on wedrove, till the mound of garbage evolved into a small village of shacks. We pulled up in front, and I realised we weren't just coming as observers, as in a safari park: I was going to have to get out and interact with these people and their harsh way of life. I had been warned of the sickening stench, but at this moment my senses were deadened with shock as I tried desperately to fit this experience into my conception of the world. We climbed up the mound and came face to face with two boys pulling a wheelbarrow up the other side. The face of one of the boys was an unusual oval shape; his skin was covered in little black marks, his teeth were misplaced. He laughed as Don Esteban helped to pull them and the barrow up the hill. His voice was husky and surprisingly deep, a distinguishing mark of the inhalante. Don Esteban wandered on towards a shack full of broken machinery and rubbish. The only recognisable object I could identify was a twisted red bra.Inside the hut was a family of four or five. An old man was standing, tall and thin, his face squashed up and wrinkled, his skin a greasy yellowy-brown. He showed strangely little reaction to the presence of his visitors. Young children were crawling around, somehow able to survive in an environment full of health hazards. A small boy wore nothing bar a dirty pair of girls knickers.Don Esteban was talking to one of the younger female members of the family, but I couldn't hear him, my mind was so full of my own thoughts and questions as to how any form of society could function in this wasteland. Forty families live in the area.In the 80s the Sandinista government cleared up the area and rehabilitated its inhabitants. Under the current government, waste disposal has become unmanageable, and the area again houses the poorest and most marginalised groups of society. The rubbish dump offers a small recompense to its inhabitants in the form of plastic containers and other scraps that can be recovered, cleaned and eventually resold in the town. I shuddered to think of how many thousands of people in countries all over the world are condemned to live the same sort of life. As we left, Don Esteban stopped to chat with a girl who was clutching a small glass jar. When she saw him she hid the jar in her skirt. He asked what it was, and she replied: "Only some herbs." Then she started to play with the glue, placing the open jar over her nose and mouth. Don Esteban tried to persuade her to visit the health clinic, and after much mock arguing she agreed to go with him next week. Back in the truck, we were on our way again. The mad guy banged on the side as we sped by. Before I knew it, we were once more surrounded by the soothing environment of trees and volcanoes for which Nicaragua is well known. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-05.29.01-01:17:49-26297