Last Monday my team and I began working with the Philippine Christian Foundation (www.pcf.ph), an organization that serves the families living in the local landfill. Over 5,000 people live in the dump creating their homes with scraps and scavenging recyclables to make their living. PCF created a school in order that the children of this area could receive an education.
When I first arrived at the school I was asked to put on goulashes and take a tour of the school and surrounding dump. The school is a modest building with concrete floors and sky lights, with the sour smell of rotting garbage wafting into every room. The smell was even stronger outside. I tried breathing through my mouth to avoid the smell but the stench was so strong it was palatable. As I walked around the “neighborhood,” I was thankful for my goulashes. The ground was not solid but a combination of mud and garbage water. It broke my heart to see so many people living in these conditions. Yet I was also thankful for the joy that many of these families seem to have found in their situation.
The following day the school’s vice principal took my team to the PCF school located in the cemetery. It didn’t look like anything I had seen before. There was no grass or small grave stones like at home. Instead, there were thousands of concrete boxes stacked on top of each other. On the face of the boxes were the names and dates of the people who had passed. Some of the graves had been broken open, most likely having their valuables stolen, and were left displaying bones or were filled with garbage. Although this wasn’t the dump, it was a dump. This day, however, I only had on my sneakers. I had to jump from rock to dry patch to avoid the garbage muck. There was one particular puddle I had trouble crossing. It was too large to jump and there weren’t any rocks near. I turned up my nose at the possibility of having to walk through it. As I considered my options a little girl passed by. She had on only a shirt- no pants, no shoes. She tromped right passed me, right through the muddy garbage mess. My mouth dropped. She walked around this dump barefoot and I was pouting because I didn’t want to get my sneakers dirty.
I hadn’t realized how comfortable I had become with the wealth in my own life. Some of my friends were nervous about my safety while abroad. Initially I shared their concerns but can no longer say that I do. When I am in the States I have food, shelter, clothes, entertainment- everything I need to make me comfortable and believe I can do things on my own. Here I can’t close my eyes to injustice. I am trying to help but find the only power I have is in prayer. So which is more risky: living a life of comfortable apathy or living in foreign country where hardships bring me to my knees daily in prayer?
