Guatemala: Squatter families subsist on the salvage from Central America's largest dump |
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It is a place where the poor, displaced, and disenfranchised gravitate to eke out a living.
Dust fills the air along with hundreds of black vultures. You don’t see any green plants or vegetation.
Around the edges of Central America's largest dump located on the outskirts of Guatemala City, thousands of the poor and refugees from Mayan communities ravaged by decades of civil war have settled into squatter camps.
Men, women and children sift through the daily deliveries to find anything of value, earning a dollar or two a day.
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Children collect items for salvage from the dump outside
Guatemala City, one of the largest dumps in the world. |
A section of the dump. |
Plenty volunteer Tomas Heikkala visited the area in 2010 while laying the groundwork for Karen's Soy Nutrition Project to assist the children who live there. He filed this report:
"The whole area reeked from the stench of the dump. As we got even closer to the dump we came to a massive cluster of dilapidated shanties where many families were living.
The name of this community is Asentamiento (settlement) Astrilla, named after the Guatemalan President’s wife. We were met by community leaders and allowed to look around. Dirt paths divided the community into a grid. We were told there are 410 families with 1500 children living there.
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Grupo de Soya Santa Maria (GSSM) member Jorge Gonzales interviews women who live alongside the dump. |
The average shack covered 100 to 150 square feet, with a dirt floor, no sanitation or plumbing. A trench ran along some of the paths and carried away the “black water” that ran from the smaller trenches coming from under the shacks.
Certain areas of Guatemala City, like the dump area, are known as “red zones” because of their high crime rates. City bus drivers get killed or robbed frequently As we walked again through the streets, we were told that a man had been killed there the night before.
We also visited a settlement named Alvaro Colon, named after the current president of Guatemala. We were met by a couple of community leaders and given a tour. Like Astrilla, it had little or no facilities, but was much dustier. The settlement is right next to the entrance road used by the trash trucks going in and out of the dump area. Approximately 250 families are living there. |
Two residents of Asentamiento Alvaro Colon. |
Our guides from the community told us they are planning to build a park for the kids and some roads between homes. The walls of the shanties were constructed with cardboard, old mattress covers, signboards, or anything else from the trash that can serve the purpose, and most have a corrugated tin roof.
Though the area is more spacious than Astrilla, it is surrounded by a great many piles of recyclables in which the children play. Food prep is done in the open areas adjacent to the rough dwellings, and cooking is done with wood scraps.
In 2011, Plenty established Karen's Soy Nutrition Project, Proyecto Nutricional de Soya Karen, to provide soy milk and soy fortified foods for up to 300 children twice a week."
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