Today probably held the biggest shock value by far—our devotions were at 8 this morning as we prepped to hand out food to the 190 families living in the Guatemala City dump. The stated verses today were from Romans 12:9-13 which reads:
9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
We discussed zeal and spiritual fervor and how we needed to harness and always have/display our passion for Christ's work. Ashley stated that as dire as today's outlook will be, we needed to have a positive attitude that will rub off on the people we're serving today. It was a great lesson to begin our day with.
Abel, our driver who has been an EMS as well as a taxi driver in Guatemala City, has been an absolute blessing driving us all over and outside of Guatemala City. He is hilarious and has a very friendly disposition; it's been fun to joke around with and get to know him. We stopped at a bakery to buy some bread for the families and loaded 3 boxes of apples to distribute among the families. We also purchased a large bag of candy to hand out to children in the families.
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| Bakery for bread pickup |
Once we arrived outside the dump, which we later found out was in the most dangerous zone in the city, we were instructed to stay inside the van while Ashley received clearance for us to enter. The gates opened and we were ushered inside the confines of the city dump. It's probably worth mentioning that it's the rainy season in Guatemala City and it rained from Tuesday afternoon until around midnight with steady to hard rain. The conditions were quite sloppy along the dirt road and we were careful to stay as dry as possible. The dump was almost beyond description, which is probably why I took as many pictures as I did today (over 100). It was about as messy, dirty, and sad as you could imagine. There were many of the inhabitants working which meant scavenging through the trash for recyclables, wrapping them in large plastic wrap, and carrying them by foot to another location within the dump.
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| Entrance to the City Dump |
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| Imagine raising a family here . . . |
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| Man working and carrying a load of recyclables |
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| Trash that belongs in the dump, not people |
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| Another view of the dump |
We headed to a community headquarters, which looked like an 1800's log cabin, a few hundred yards inside the entrance. Ashley had a great way to evenly distribute the food. We placed a bouncer at the front to make sure only one family went in at a time along and another bouncer in the back making sure people didn't try to sneak back in to get more food. There were one or two hosts who would usher the families through the food line to make sure they went in the right direction and to keep the flow moving smoothly. There was a bread, apple, and candy distributer responsible for handing out each of the items. There was also a worker who would check off the families’ names in order to make sure each family was represented. We served 94 out of the 190 families 3-5 loaves of bread, 3 apples, and some candy. The rest of them will get their food tonight as they were working and could not make the morning food drop. The experience was amazing, and I was grateful to help and did my best to wear a smiling face along the way. It was very difficult however; knowing that after this round of food, who knew where their next meal or meals would come from . . .
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| Team praying "Korean Style" in the Community Headquarters |
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| Erin and Darbi handing out bread and apples to a family |
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| Bob handing out candy to one of the many children living here |
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| Amanda showing some love to one of the family members |
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| Tyler helping a little one out of the community building |
After we finished handing out food to the families, we prayed for the committee members who assisted Ashley with the food drops. They were very grateful for our assistance and there were hugs and “gracias” all around afterwards. Ashley then led us on a tour of the entire dump. I won't take a lot of time to attempt to describe it due to the amount of pictures I took, but these living conditions made the ghetto look like a decent neighborhood. The ghetto, had cement ground and fairly decent roads where the dump had nothing but dirt, trash, and small ground out canals for sewage and waste. There was no running water (which could be found in some homes in the ghetto), only big blue barrels to collect rain water. There was also no electricity (which could also be found in some homes in the ghetto). Finally, the biggest kicker, for me anyway, is the amount of children roaming around this area in which they call home. Some lacked shoes and seeing all these children was hard to bear, especially when the bare essentials are hard to come by. The idea of any human being living in those conditions is hard to wrap your head around but seeing the children cut to the core. It's hard to even write about. For their part, people were grateful and happy to see us, and the large bag of candy definitely helped with the children! We took as many pictures as we could and our time at the city dump came to an end.
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| Water is collected for drinking purposes and sold to the 190 families |
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| Little girl sitting outside |
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| Typical house for families of the dump |
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| View down a "street" |
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| Kids swarming us for a chance at some candy |
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| Erin helping some children who were gathering around us |
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| Amanda gave her hat to this young man! |
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| Bob acting like the pied piper with the candy bag!! |
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| Bob with two young boys who were very skilled at staying with us and obtaining candy :) |
On our way home Ashley had a surprise for us . . . a visit to a large cemetery around a mile away. We had to pay roughly 2 US dollars just to enter the gates, which, in hindsight, was quite frustrating. There were mausoleums for some of the richer citizens and for those with less financial resources, there were walls and walls of caskets upon caskets similar to a wooden-structured, morgue. We found out that families have to pay rent to have their deceased family members laid to rest in one of the slots of these walls. If they are unable to pay rent, then their coffins get dumped down a cliff into the dump. It was beyond belief. So, to recap, if I'm a poor resident of Guatemala and want to pay respects to a family member, I need to pay money just to get in, as well as pay rent to keep my family member’s burial place. It was such a huge injustice in a corrupt place. We've heard stories of bribes happening on a daily basis to the policemen in the city. Anyway, I apologize for the rabbit trail but I am dealing with this situation that is not just talked about, but is in actual existence here in 2010. Some of the saddest images, along with the children at the dump, were the broken coffins of adults and children at the bottom of the cliff and the vultures that were constantly flying overhead scavenging . . .
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| Grocery store near Dorie's Promise |
The final activity came when it was time to help put the children to bed/spend and spend some quality time with them. We went to house 5 first to see the little ones, which was fun and enjoyable for the most part. But one of the children took my camera to take pictures of Barbie dolls and wouldn't give it back. She was gripping it very harshly and I was starting to lose my temper. It was at that point that I realized how tired/exhausted/overwhelmed I was and needed to take a break from these fantastic children, who merely wanted to play and have fun before bed. It's only 8 PM and I've been up for barely 12 hours and I'm completely worn out. This trip is absolutely incredible and better than anything I've ever imagined experience-wise, but it is wholly and fully exhausting. Tomorrow we will be visiting some orphanages that are similar to most in the city to have our eyes ripped open to yet more of the happenings in Guatemala.
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| A beautiful site to come home to at the end of a gut-wrenching day |
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