Urban Movement

I moved (already). As much as I loved living with my host family, it’s cheaper to live on my own, and it allows me to live at my own pace. I now live about 8 blocks north of Lucky and Jose, in a house that I share with 5 other Safe Passage volunteers and 2 other gringos who work/study in Antigua.

To clarify, as I might have omitted this before, I live in Antigua, but my organization works in Guatemala City. Antigua is smaller, safer, and more foreigner-friendly than the City. Its cobblestone streets are lined with colorfully painted one- to two-story buildings, along with ruins galore; the vacant remains of 17^th-ish century churches speckle the map. The tiny, one-block park is the center of town, the hub of its charm. The Cerro de la Cruz (Hill of the Cross) marks the north, and Volcano Agua dominates the skyline to the south. Every afternoon, the market on the west side booms with cheap produce. Avocados grow rampant here, and native Antiguans are known as “Panzaverdes” or “Green-bellies” for their avocado-heavy diets.

Antigua attracts heaps of international ex-pats, as well as wealthy Guatemala City residents, who saturate the streets on weekends. There are spas, language schools, and gourmet restaurants. I've seen menu items here I never dreamed would have reached Central America – gnocchi, crepes, bagels and lox, a bottomless mimosa brunch?? Even in St. Louis those are hard to come by. Thank you, tourism industry.

By contrast, I spend most of my days in Guatemala City’s Zone 3, a place adamantly avoided by tourists and Guatemalans alike. The primary features of Zone 3 are the General Cemetery and the Basurero (Garbage Dump). Before I get off the bus, I can usually smell it – the putrid scent of rotting… everything. Vultures swoop overhead. Above dirt-caked asphalt, dusty tennis shoes hang from electric lines by the dozens. Makeshift tin and/or grey concrete homes fill every square foot available.

The communities surrounding the dump arose during Guatemala’s Civil War. Their story echoes many around the world: Circa the 1970’s and 80’s, state military and guerrilla forces pursued each other in a battle for control of territory/resources. Rural communities got swept up in the violence. People witnessed violent atrocities. They saw their innocent neighbors, friends, family members murdered. Tortured. Massacred. People ran. They ran to the capitol, and they survived, settling in the least desirable sections of the city.

In Guatemala City’s garbage dump, the children and grandchildren of the war’s internal refugees continue to fight for survival. Many make a living digging, waste-deep, through the trash, salvaging and re-selling anything of value that they can find. Many more operate as middle men, buying salvaged materials from the dump and refurbishing them for sale to manufacturers. Very few remember, nor do they hope for, a life beyond Zone 3.

I often reflect on the terrible synchronicity of it all. The people whom those in power considered trash now live in trash. In the land society has designated to bury its dead, reside those who are dead to society. And in the ravines of this land, day after day, these people bury themselves in waste and decay, in order to live on that which has been left for dead, forgotten. As they themselves seem to be.

The idea of our work at Safe Passage is to break the cycle of working in the dump, to empower our students to move UP. If a young person achieves a high enough level of education, s/he may get hired in a formal capacity. If the mothers of our students can learn a new trade through our social entrepreneurship programs, they can make more money and save for their families in ways that were never before possible. If the fathers can advance their own education in adult literacy classes, perhaps they can use what they’ve learned to take on a new level of employment. The smallest increments of progress make an indefinable difference.

All in all, there’s a lot going on, and a lot to take in. But there are some really wonderful movements to be a part of.