Photos tell this story best

Before we ate lunch, we drove to the cemetery.  Why the cemetery? Because from the cemetery we could walk to an overlook and see the garbage dump from above– it was inside a crater-esque area.  For our bus to enter the cemetery, Juan Carlos had to pay as we drove through a gate.  We navigated to a spot far back, and he parked the bus.  All of us hustled out and followed Andres and Juan Carlos, police officer in front and police officer behind.  I meandered.  It was easier to take pictures. that way, but one of the officers, Carlos, then stayed back so that I wasn’t alone.

There was beauty there and history as well. I noticed, as I looked up, that there were hundreds of birds in the sky.  I felt like someone in The Birds: totally creepy.

We could smell burning and there was trash littered throughout our path to get to the overlook.  Our group spread out, single file, as they walked through the thigh-high grass.

The section of the cemetery that we passed through had been closed and people weren’t buried there anymore:

I wondered whose bodies had been removed.  How did their families feel? Did they even know? So many stories in those boxes.

And then, we were at the overlook. Years before, I had been in JustFaith and they showed us a video of a garbage dump community.  I’ve done community service and worked in impoverished areas for 15 years. I thought I knew. I thought I was prepared.  I was wrong.

Some excerpts!

Here are some excerpts of impressions from my journal (mostly about things you’ve already read about here)

“There’s Jorge–My friend from St. Francis Coll, who sat next to me at the assembly and loved looking at the pics as I them them on my camera. He’s very talented: he played recorder, offered a greeting/welcome to us, and he played drums for another act.”

“The generosity: these people live hospitality, abundance, welcoming.  The light in eyes–and yet also, in some, the deadness was visible–as we walked through the barrios.”

“The nursery: the founder, Sonia, and how she shared with me about her two sons–one in Miami and the other, newly divorced and living at home again with her and her husband.  He’s in his late 30s and asks her every night, ‘what’s for dinner?'”

“The way in which the police officers journeyed with us throughout the day–flanking us–one ahead, one behind, with guns and beat sticks.  The prevalence of armed police and military all over.  National Police, black uniforms, City Police, yellow uniforms and our companions.”

“Entering into the corrugated aluminum homes–the claustrophobia I felt, of so many in such a small space, and the lack of light–the lack of circulation of air–the staleness and deadness of the air.”

 

I’ll post another entry later today about our visit to the cemetery/dump.