When I was growing up – eons ago – we had very little trash. Or, as some call it, garbage. Coming through the Depression Era, my parents used everything until things just seemed to vanish. For instance, we’d use a food colander until it was too rusty. Then we’d use it to sift dirt we put into planters. Food scraps, if any after feeding seven, went to the dogs, cats, hogs, chickens or ducks. Ducks will eat anything, incidentally. And I couldn’t count the mason jars my dad had filled with bent nails, rusted bolts and nuts. What we couldn’t salvage, went on the “burn pile.” Whatever little survived all that went to the dump. Trips to the dump were few and far between, but us kids would always find a treasure to take home – broken toys, wheels of any variety, anything our imaginations could put to a good use.
Today, things are different. Today, almost everything is disposable. In the university town I lived in, divers made a killing at the end of each school year, finding everything from good furniture to functioning laptops. Recently, university made campus dumpsters off-limits for “safety reasons.” Now, all that stuff is now going to the landfill. But, unlike my childhood days, “recycling” from the dump is now prohibited – also for “safety reasons.” Probably a good thing. Dumps are dangerous and dirty places. But in Guatemala, dump recycling is not just for kids. It is an industry for thousands of people; generations of men, women and children have turned trash into business that allows them to survive in a very tough world. They have a name for what they do, and they will tell you if you ask. “I am a Scavenger.”
The Guatemala City dump is one of the largest in Central America. Every day, millions of tons of trash is dumped there. And every day, hundreds of Scavengers claw through it, searching for anything that has value – plastics, steel, glass, cardboard, electronics, wires, rope, clothing, car parts, toy parts and more. And over the years, a community of tens-of-thousands has grown up around the dump – men, women and children. Originally, they lived in what they scavenged – dirt-floor homes with cardboard walls and plastic tarps or a piece of scrap tin for a roof; sleeping on filthy, discarded mattresses; sitting on broken plastic stools. Today, their lot has improved somewhat. Small, concrete block homes are being constructed with support from ministries like one we recently visited – Potter’s House.
Potter’s House has been serving the Guatemala City dump population for nearly 25 years. Their 25th year celebration will be this Christmas. It was on Christmas Eve in 1986 when a group of missionaries decided to provide a Christmas meal for those who lived and worked on the city’s dump. The good works of Potter’s House has grown exponentially since then. The objective of Potter’s House is not to try to change the culture of those who live there, but to bring a better life to them. Out of their center just a few blocks from the dump – and smack in the middle of the dump community – the Potter’s House staff and volunteers provide feeding programs, life skills training, tutoring for children, English language and computer classes, and basic medical, dental and pharmacy services. Mission teams come several times a year bringing supplies, helping construct homes in the community – clearly identified by their blue and yellow paint – the official colors of the Potter’s House ministry. Medical and dental teams provide as much primary care as they can to as many as possible in the short time they are here.
Because of the large population, representatives from within the dump community have been selected to help coordinate the services Potter’s House provides. These representatives meet with Potter’s House staff every few weeks to coordinate services including home construction, medical services and social and safety issues. Even with all Potter’s House is able to do, the physical needs here are barely touched. But there is one need being addressed that is making radical differences in the community – the need to be valued.
Because of where they live, what they do, where they were born and where they are raised – on the dump – they begin to take on the belief that they, like what they scavenge, are trash, garbage, waste. Too often, that belief is reinforced by others who, although desperately poor also, see themselves as better than the scavengers.
But those who work in the community through Potter’s House see them as God sees them, and to Him, they are Treasures to be loved, appreciated and honored as His children. Treasures. Indeed they are. They may be poor in possessions, but they are rich in spirit, and willing to share it with others.
http://www.pottershouse.org.gt/
