an entry from my journal:

10 de octubre 2007

I am at a loss for words. We went to the city dump of Managua, Nicaragua today. About 2,000 people live there in the dump and collect recyclables to sell in order to earn $2-4 a day. It was the worst thing that I have ever seen in my life. By far. The children were running around naked and carrying guns. From a medical standpoint, these people are covered and filled with diseases. The trash is constantly being burned and so everyone’s lungs are filled with smoke. Toxic smoke. A man came onto the bus with us to share his story.  We wouldn’t dare step off the bus, because our little fragile American bodies couldn’t handle that. He came to work in the dump from the fields in the northern region of the country, because he can make more money here. He has two children and they attend a school in the dump. This man is a Christian. A Christ follower. Truly. There are also a number of Protestant churches within the dump.  The government of Nicaragua does nothing to support and help these people, and human rights are non-existent.  I can’t help but think that it is mostly the U.S. government’s fault for the position they are in because of our involvement in Nicaragua during the 1980’s.

I was brought to tears, as several of us were. The yellow bus completely turned to silence as we observed this poor and starving world.  Then another garbage truck drove up and the people ran to meet it to better their chance of finding the best garbage.  Immediately after this, still sitting in complete silence, we pulled up to the biggest and best mall in Managua.  They were playing with our emotions, but wanted us to realize that we live our big expensive lives literally ten minutes away from the poorest people in the world.  We were back in our little comfort zones, complete with expensive clothes and fast food.  It made me sick.  We don’t experience this drastic of a difference in lives.  Heck, our laws even prohibit people from going into our dumps, much less living there, and our dumps are even held to a higher sanitary standard than the piles of trash that line the land here and are taken down to the lakeside to be washed.

We’re immediately challenged to process what we had just experienced and I don’t think that I will ever be able to be in a mall again without remembering what I saw on this day. It’s days like this that make me wonder how I will be able to go back to the States.  It would be far easier for me to stay here at this point, because changing my life to better match theirs would be a lot easier than trying to come home and live a changed life like the one I am experiencing right now.