Sitting outside in the cool breeze, it is my first night at the Casa Hogar Orphanage when all of a sudden; I feel a pair of small arms wrap around me in a warm embrace. Every day, the little hands wake up without parents, without hot water to shower, and with very little to truly call their own; yet they are still eager to extend their love towards a stranger. Two little hands that I have never met before have the power to make my heart glow for hours, days and weeks to come. It is nearly nine o’clock in the morning, and the sun is already hot on my back. Filthy trash mounds pile as high as the neighboring mountains. Both overhead and looming in the distance, hundreds of black vultures swarm like a bad omen. Limping along up and down the garbage mountain and along the rutty dirt road are mangled dogs: dogs with deformed legs and dogs that are balding. This dump is no place for dogs. This dump is no place for people; the one-hundred-and-twenty-people; the thirty-three families who must scavenge through what others throw away in order to survive. A woman and her four children under the age of ten, including two infants, spend 10 hours a day under the hot sun, wading through everything from syringes to dead cows in the hopes of earning a grand $1 a day. To meet such families and to take in the loving energy emanating from their hugs, kisses and smiles makes me smile in spite of the outrage. The phrase “desperate time’s call for desperate measures” is not an uncommon one. One might assume that surviving off of another’s discarded, moldy bread would drive a person to do whatever it takes to achieve a better lifestyle, even if it means using members of his or her community as stepping stones. Selling plastic bottles, tin cans and cardboard that they have collected, the families at the dump have created a weighing system, and a set price per unit weight. They have created a union for themselves; they have protected each other’s livelihood; they have created a closely knit community; they have never ceased to love one another. Two young boys about 5 years old are making their way through the garbage. I wave, and they return the gesture with big, goofy grins. They will never go to school: they must work in the dump. They will never receive a toy of their own: they hunt for used children’s books. It’s the hand that life dealt them, and it’s infuriating. But never have I seen two boys that look happier or more in love with the world around them. Despite the outrage, I find myself smiling; it’s a chain reaction. Love has the power to turn impoverished and sub-human conditions into a place that I would return again and again if given the chance; into a place that I would be proud to call my home. I believe in love.
It is nearly nine o’clock in the morning, and the sun is already hot on my back. Filthy trash mounds pile as high as the neighboring mountains. Both overhead and looming in the distance, hundreds of black vultures swarm like a bad omen. Limping along up and down the garbage mountain and along the rutty dirt road are mangled dogs: dogs with deformed legs and dogs that are balding. This dump is no place for dogs. This dump is no place for people; the one-hundred-and-twenty-people; the thirty-three families who must scavenge through what others throw away in order to survive. A woman and her four children under the age of ten, including two infants, spend 10 hours a day under the hot sun, wading through everything from syringes to dead cows in the hopes of earning a grand $1 a day. To meet such families and to take in the loving energy emanating from their hugs, kisses and smiles makes me smile in spite of the outrage.
The phrase “desperate time’s call for desperate measures” is not an uncommon one. One might assume that surviving off of another’s discarded, moldy bread would drive a person to do whatever it takes to achieve a better lifestyle, even if it means using members of his or her community as stepping stones. Selling plastic bottles, tin cans and cardboard that they have collected, the families at the dump have created a weighing system, and a set price per unit weight. They have created a union for themselves; they have protected each other’s livelihood; they have created a closely knit community; they have never ceased to love one another.
Two young boys about 5 years old are making their way through the garbage. I wave, and they return the gesture with big, goofy grins. They will never go to school: they must work in the dump. They will never receive a toy of their own: they hunt for used children’s books. It’s the hand that life dealt them, and it’s infuriating. But never have I seen two boys that look happier or more in love with the world around them. Despite the outrage, I find myself smiling; it’s a chain reaction.
Love has the power to turn impoverished and sub-human conditions into a place that I would return again and again if given the chance; into a place that I would be proud to call my home. I believe in love.