We went to two villages yesterday.
The first was a village of houses on stilts over a ditch of dirty water. They were simple houses built with dried reeds consisting of only one room. We met a mother there who had six children. Her children didn’t go to school because she was too poor to send them to school. Instead, they stayed home and helped her. The older ones helped to clean and make food for the family. A couple houses down is a house where the church holds weekly prayer meetings.
We met a young boy who has down’s syndrome and autism at this house. His grandmother had to take care of him; he couldn’t sit up by himself. He had the biggest smile on his face as he made eye contact with us. We all fell in love with his precious smile and contagious joy. We prayed for the village and the families we encountered. After meeting the people of this village, we got back in our roto and drove to another village. Our translator, Eunis, told us that the next village is a garbage village.
She wasn’t kidding or even exaggerating.
The next village was filled with tent houses, and built right in front of the landfill. Imagine walking straight into the biggest landfill in your town, taking a big whiff, and then living on top of that. It gets pretty chilly during the night, and stays mildly cool until about 9. Then, the heat sets in and the rest of the day is filled with sweat. So, on top of a landfill smell, add in the summer heat. This is what this village lives and works in. We parked on the main street then walked down the path to the tents.
The first thing I saw when I entered the village was a boy, who looked to be about 12, digging through a bag of trash. He was just sitting in the middle of this pile, and every time he would dig out a new pile from the bag, he would start pulling out and separating the plastic cups from the paper ones. We asked Eunis what he was doing. Her response absolutely broke my heart. She said that he is too poor to go to school, so he helps the family by working.
Every day, he sits in this pile of trash and picks out the recyclable materials from the trash. And all for what? One dollar and fifty cents a day. He is one of seven siblings that live in this dumpster village. All I could think of the whole time I stood there watching him was how I know 12 year old kids in America. They come to my Sunday school or I babysit them. None of the 12 year olds I know would ever sit in a pile of trash, much less pick through it. I wondered how long he has been doing this, and how much more of his life would consist of him staring at other people’s garbage all day long. I sat down next to him and picked up some garbage. I just wanted to see him smile. He just looked at me with big, sad eyes. I wish that he had hope. His brothers and sisters were with the rest of the team; they were running around, playing, and laughing. But this boy, maybe the oldest of his siblings, sat here, digging for hope.
