For some in Managua, home is a garbage dump

from the San Antonio News Express

By Bonnie Kavoussi
Special to the Express-News

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Near the historical center of this country's capital city, along the lake, lies a giant garbage dump. Although many people burn their trash outside their homes, this is where the rest of the garbage of Managua ends up. It is such a large dump that the locals have a name for it — La Chureca.

Piles of tires, cardboard, bags, paper, torn clothes and dead animals stretch for miles beyond sight. Then, an abandoned boy rises from the muck. Naked and covered in dirt, he wanders through the leftovers of a city larger than San Antonio. That is when one realizes — this trash dump is what he and some 2,000 others call home.

During my two-week stay last June with my friend Renata Barreto and her family, I was struck by how widespread the poverty was. Every time Renata's family would drive me around, I'd glimpse the faces of the poor and wonder about their life stories. Even as I grew more thankful for the comfortable estate where I was staying, I became determined to experience Nicaragua on the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum.

So, one Saturday, I decided to explore the streets of Managua in the same way that Express-News reporter Vince Davis drives the streets of San Antonio every Wednesday, looking for a story. Since I had the fortune of shadowing Davis as an Express-News intern on a few of his reporting trips, I knew the basics about how to find a story and interview people.

Renata's aunt, Karla Grace Montenegro del Carmen, gave me the name of a trustworthy taxi driver who drove me around the streets of Managua for 21/2 hours. He was an excellent judge of which places were safe to stop at and which weren't.

Before the trip, Renata's grandmother, Gloria Montalvan, had asked, "Which parts of Managua do you want to see?"

"The poorest parts," I said immediately.

"Then you should go to La Chureca."

Remembering that suggestion, I asked the taxi driver to take me to the trash dump.

Our arrival must have been a sight to behold — a cab slowly driving through mountains of debris as hundreds of people paused from picking through the trash to stare up at us.

Throughout La Chureca, clusters of shacks dot the landscape. They're made of cardboard, plastic, plywood, metal, mattresses — all material dug up from the piles of trash surrounding them.

In one complex live 15 family members. They have made these few shacks, each spanning several square yards. The family has lived in La Chureca for 20 years.

The first question that might come to mind is why any human being would willingly live in such conditions. Reyna Isabel Arbizu, 49, explains, "We moved here because we didn't have work. We don't have to pay anything to live here."

Santo Ramón Aguirre Ríos, 42, the taxi driver who drove me to La Chureca, says that they have access to everything they need to survive right there.

In a perverse sort of way, Ríos is right. A hose next to this family's shacks provides water to bathe in and to drink. In the piles of trash surrounding them, there are leftover clothes to wear, leftover food to eat. But is it possible to maintain one's dignity while living off everyone else's leftovers?

Celia Gutierrez Arbizu, 19, says that the adults in her family work in La Chureca from 6 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon, seven days a week. Their mission: to find recyclables in the trash heaps and sell them to a nearby facility. This work is the only gainful activity available to most residents here.

"When we don't work, we don't eat," says Celia.

At the end of the week, according to Celia, they earn only 50 córdobas — far less than $3.

The family has hardly any clothes. Reyna, using an old sewing machine, has sewn together the few articles they do have from torn-away cloth.

Stray chickens wander around the shacks, as they do around all of Managua. These chickens will hopefully provide food for them — the freshest that they can find. Otherwise, they dig through the trash for food and smell it to see whether it is good or bad to eat.

It is a gross understatement when Celia says it's boring to live in La Chureca. There's no protection from disease, let alone any form of entertainment. They walk around barefoot as pieces of glass dot the ground.

There is a doctor in La Chureca, but he charges too much money for the family to afford. Manuel Villareyna, 5, is currently suffering from pneumonia. Elias Villareyna, 5 months old, already has a severe rash along his neck and buttocks and sobs from pain. No one in the family knows what has caused Elias' rash.

Their only hope for health is not in medicine or a health-care system, but in God. Andre Gutierrez Arbizu, 27, prays, "By the grace of God, we won't get sick."

On a wall outside the main shack hangs a campaign poster of Daniel Ortega, the socialist president of Nicaragua. It claims in bold letters in Spanish, "United, Nicaragua triumphs! Reconciliation, peace, work, well-being!"

The people here are the poorest of the poor. Everywhere in Managua — even in the suburbs — there is poverty, but nothing like La Chureca. Here, human beings are reduced to eating the same food as stray dogs. It is as if society has discarded not only unwanted things in this dump, but also unwanted people.

Nonetheless, there is still a glimmer of hope in this trash heap. That hope is education. All the children in the family attend the Colegio Cristiano de Esperanza — the Christian School of Hope — for free. The children speak positively about the quality of teaching there. They all wish to attend college someday.

Manuel Villareyna, 5, hopes to become a doctor when he grows up. His mom, Celia, smiles and says, "He wants to be able to cure me when I get sick."

Even though they wear trash, eat trash, and live in trash, the children refuse to believe that they are trash.

Victoria Villareyna, 6, giggles when a photo is taken of her and shouts, "Take another one."

Gazing into the camera, she hugs her siblings tightly, determined to show that even though her family does not have much, they still have plenty of love.

Bonnie Kavoussi, kavoussi@fas. Harvard.edu, is a former member of the San Antonio Express-News Teen Team. She's currently a freshman at Harvard University.