April 14, 2008

Fighting over the garbage

Dear Friends,

As I write this, Managua has just concluded what some would call a garbage strike. Actually it is more of a garbage protest than a strike, since the garbage collectors were still going about their work. The garbage was picked up from my house on the same regular schedule. What I didn’t know during this protest is where the garbage went once it was picked up. I still don't know who got the valuable cans and bottles for recycling.

Usually the garbage from our area goes straight to the city dump, called “La Chureca.” There are some parts of the city where the streets are so narrow that the garbage is collected in horse-drawn carts and taken to a “temporary dump.” Then the city sends in a loader and dump trucks to haul it to La Chureca. Several hundred families live on the grounds of La Chureca, grubbing their living out of the garbage. Others who live nearby come into the dump every day to rake through the trash, looking for the recyclable materials, or a scrap of edible food. In all, about 1,600 people (over 500 of them are children) work in the dump, sorting out every scrap of anything that can be sold.

For several years there was a formal agreement, monitored by the city, between the people who live in La Chureca and the garbage collectors, who are considered to be well paid by Nicaraguan standards. The collectors didn’t sort out the more valuable copper, bronze, or aluminum from the garbage. Last year, the city stopped monitoring this agreement, and the garbage collectors have started to separate the more valuable garbage before it gets to the dump, thus depriving some of the poorest people in the city of their only source of income.

La Chureca is the site of a lot of U.S.-based church organizations. Everybody from the United States who comes here on a mission trip wants to see La Chureca, and some groups are busy working there. There are schools, child feeding centers, a health center and churches, all run by U.S. Christian groups. I’m not sure that I see these as a sign of hope or of restoring God’s justice. I fear that the patronizing attitude that I sometimes hear from such groups only makes the long-term dependency even worse.

The sign of hope for restoring God’s justice that I see is in the people of La Chureca themselves. These poorest of the poor, who live off of other people’s garbage, have organized and are fighting back, even at the risk of their own well-being. About a month ago, they blocked the entrance to the dump and refused to let the garbage trucks enter. They negotiated with the city to begin monitoring the agreement again. And in the meantime the city either dumped garbage in one of the temporary dumps, or took it to the city dump of one of the nearby towns like Tipitapa or Nindiri.

The whole situation became a political football, with the mayor of Managua fighting with other mayors to use their dumps and the Ministry of Health warning of the danger of disease epidemics here in the city. There were accusations that national political leaders fomented the entire protest to make the mayor of Managua look bad to the public. (The mayor here is very popular among many people, but very unpopular among the national leaders of his political party.)

Amid all the political grandstanding, the people of  La Chureca seem to have been forgotten by the press. For several days the newspaper had big articles about the health danger and the political struggles, but nothing at all about life in La Chureca. There was nothing about women giving birth in the garbage, nothing about children searching through the garbage for a scrap of food, nothing about a way of life that is so destitute that it makes other people’s garbage a valuable commodity.

But it is in those people—who have been so badly neglected, so terribly ignored, and whose lives are truncated by the squalor—that I find hope for the restoration of God’s justice. They hung together during the entire protest. They were well organized and sought out allies. And they did not ask for charity! In fact, they weren’t willing to settle for charity! They wanted enforcement of a legal agreement that would allow them to work and earn their meager living from other people’s garbage.

Last week the protest finally ended, and the garbage trucks are going into La Chureca again. The situation isn’t solved; the already well-paid garbage truck workers are still allowed to pick out the “most valuable” garbage. The protest finally stopped when the people of La Chureca couldn’t go on any longer without having the meager income that they can earn by raking through our garbage. Hungry mouths to feed temporarily finally won out over this round of the struggle for a better life. But the struggle for a better life isn’t over in one round. “Los Churequeros” will be back, better organized, and with more allies. Their struggle will go on.

Yes, fighting over the garbage is a symbol of the poverty and destitution of many people in Nicaragua. But it is also a symbol of hope, a symbol that even the least educated, most marginalized people can come together in care for each other as they struggle to restore God’s justice.

Doug

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 263