at the dump

All week I've been thinking about this place. Something draws me here and as the van drives up closer to the face of the dump and so many children run to greet us, I know what it is- it's them! I can't advocate for people I've never met or share the plight of a people I've never seen. So today I will see this place firsthand. As I climb out of the van, the rest of the team looks solemn. They've done this before. Last week, on a day that my boys and I spent with family, the team came here. When we met up with them later for dinner, their faces held this same expression. A mixture of shock and helplessness. As they shared what they had seen and experienced at the dump and about the people who lived there, my heart joined them in their grief and a wave of sorrow smothered me. They live at the dump. Their homes are plastic and tarp. They live where the sludge collects at the bottom of the mountainous heaps of trash.

I couldn't eat. I spent most of that evening on the floor of a stall in the restaurant bathroom crying out in anger to God. “Why, God? It's not right. It's just not right”.

Now I get out of the van to meet these people for myself. A beautiful elderly woman and her nearly blind daughter and four-year-old granddaughter greet us. This grandmothers' hugs and kisses are so fervent that they hurt my cheeks. Her smile is so broad that it hurts my eyes. It's an oxymoron for her to be smiling here. I half want her to stop- doesn't she see her surroundings? Doesn't she perceive the danger here for her family? But on she smiles with a joy that is either utterly stupid or profoundly supernatural. At this moment, I can't tell which. 

 We balance our way along a one and a half foot wide concrete ledge which any misstep off either side would land us 12 feet down into a green river of sewage and garbage. The four year old granddaughter navigates it with ease. This is her neighborhood.

We continue walking toward her home, following after sure-footed-grandmother in the lead. The path to her home is mud and garbage but mostly smashed empty plastic bottles. With each step, the bottles crush down and the mud seeps up and overtakes my shoe. Now the dump is in my shoe. After a short distance, we take a left off the path and are faced with a steep, rocky, muddy trail down to her home. Find sure footing. Don't slip. And yet grandmother swiftly leads the way with nearly blind daughter and four-year-old granddaughter following. We are soon at the bottom, standing in front of her home. Her makeshift home is leaning awkwardly, evidence that the hillside is slowly giving way under the weight of the daily rain and the trash collected there. Each day during rainy season, water seeps up through the ground of her house making it muddy inside as well as out.

I look back up the path that we have just climbed down. On it's right, held back by a fence made of long wooden poles, is a huge pile of plastics to be recycled. The fence leans heavily against the weight, threatening to overtake the path and the home at the bottom. Mudslide is imminent here.

The daughter whose eyesight fails her stares into a space beyond my eyes. Her body is exposed through the shreds of her dress. Her daughter holds on to grandma's skirt and looks up curiously at the white visitors.

Grandmother tells us about stomach pain and surgeries and about the miraculous provision from the Ethiopian hosts who have brought us here. She tells us how her life is improving. Our translator tells her that all things good are from God. She heartily agrees. When asked permission for a photo, she puffs up and laughs, getting ready to pose.

In spite of these surroundings, this grandmother smiles, motions to the heavens and blesses the Lord.

I know this grandmother is teaching me something but I'm not sure what it is. “Be thankful for what you have?” Too simple. “Real joy comes from knowing God?” Okay, but I know God too and still my joy wanes at trouble. What's the lesson, grandmother? Maybe the lesson is still to be discovered. Maybe I'll find it as I figure out how to respond to what I've seen here today.

As I leave the garbage dump village of Kore this year, I am finding it a strange honor to be bitten by these damned bugs and covered in this parasitic dirt. It's not enough suffering to compare with the suffering of the people here. Some people ask God, 'why them and not me?' But I truly believe our placement on the is earth is some kind of dumb luck. I'm not chosen for privilege while this grandmother is chosen for tragedy. Dumb luck though, doesn't exempt me from knowing the poverty of the world.  It only puts me in a position to change it. I'd like to find out how to change it, please. Someone tell me how and then I'll do it.