We left for Chiquimula today. To be completely honesty, I had no idea where I was going exactly until about an hour before I got in the car. Around that time I was also able to meet Boston, a recent Masters graduate from Boulder currently working for a non-profit called Burn Design Lab. I will be assisting him this week as he researches to find the ideal biofuel briquette, using corn husks, coffee husks, binding materials, and other decomposed matter.
We left around 3pm and arrived here around 6pm. Just as we were about to arrive we stopped at the garbage dump right outside Chiquimula to get an idea of the accessibility of cardboard and other binding material for the briquettes.
You may remember me writing about the dumps I saw near and inside Guatemala City. The situation was heart-wrenching, but I wasn't able to actually witness what went on directly inside the dump. But here I did. We pulled over to the side of the road near the entrance to the site. There were three young girls sitting on huge bags of collected cardboard, glass, plastic, and other various items. As we began talking to the girls, their mother came out. Michelle asked a few detailed questions about the dumps and the people that collect the items.
As they're speaking with each other, I see her son (no older than 6 years old) begin to walk towards us. I can see him playing with spool of string from a kite with a tin can tied to the end- he was having a blast. He knew no better. To add to it, this boy's skin was completely blackened by spending his days in the dump. It was evident that his skin had a very think layer of ash on his entire body. Flies were swarming him and his family. Upon talking to the mother more, we found out that he and his sisters do not attend school and spend their days collecting garbage, as their mother is the buyer of the dump. This means that number families, totaling about 200 people, come to the dumps every single day to collect trash from the dumps that they then sell to this woman. She pays them 15 Quetzales (a little less than $2) for collecting 100 pounds of cardboard, with an average of about 200-300 pounds per week . I believe she also said she pays 18 Quetzales for about 17-20 pounds of plastic. The woman then resells it to buyers that come from Guatemala City.
Let's calculate this with very rough numbers...We'll be generous with the numbers and say that each family is about 5 people, which means there are about 40 families in the dump every day collecting trash. On average 200-300 pounds (30-45 Quetzales worth) of cardboard is collected in a week. So... Q45 of cardboard divided amongst 40 families? Given they also receive money for collecting glass and plastic, but still...hundreds of people are spending their days in a dirty, toxic, and dangerous dump and barely making any money. It's devastating.
As we walked through the dump a little, I noticed that the boy was now in a whole the size of his body with a pick digging for garbage. Turns out the dump is 8 years old, but people just started scavenging last year... so, there is literally layer upon layer of trash that they dig through. Once they collect the majority of the valuable materials, they ignite the dump so that it is easier to dig through the unwanted material. We stood on a ledge and looked out into the dumps..vultures everywhere, dogs attacking each other for food, and flames and smoke creating a haze across the entire area... Now the boys skin color makes a lot more sense....
After the dump we checked into our hotel and went to get dinner. Michelle began reminding Boston and me of how dangerous the town can be at night, and what to do if robbed. This was all very comforting of course? But either way, I'm still looking forward to this week- Boston and I will be doing some interesting work and I think I can learn a lot from him and his organization. Plus, (although people in the office do know English there's still a huge disconnect at times) its a total different experience having a guy from the states here, around the same age, with similar interests and sense of humor...it's sort of be a nice break from four weeks of solitude.
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