After a blistering morning shoveling garbage in Nicaragua, Passporter Madison Miller was ready to throw away her soiled gloves and take a long shower. Instead, she jumped on the back of a garbage truck with her teammates and rode to the dump, where she met people literally digging in and living amongst trash just to survive.
Morning came and like usual on mission trips, things didn’t go as planned. We didn’t have anything to do around the community so we were assigned work on the compound. We were told to grab shovels and head out to the garbage pile on the project. When we visually took in our next mission I was like “no biggy”. Then we started.
I normally don’t have a problem getting my hands dirty but it was pretty disgusting. I felt nauseous just picking at some of the rotten garbage. Unusual looking bugs were crawling everywhere. All the brush and cardboard boxes were decomposing from sitting out in the rain. The whole time all I could think about was getting it over with so I could go take a cold shower and get out of the nasty, sweaty, smelly, hot environment I was in.
Once our team had finished getting our gloved hands dirty we learned no cold shower yet because now we had to take the trash to the dump. We got 15 blissful minutes in the shade and then loaded up in the back of the garbage truck.
When we arrived our first impression was smell… then the visual wasn’t so pleasant either. It was a sea of garbage. Mounds of trash piled up to level with our truck. Swarms of flies following every scrawny mutt searching through the filth.
The shaggy homes built throughout the trash piles. Wait what? Houses? People live in dumps?
*Photo by @lexijohannessen
The homes were made of sticks and tattered tarp held together with twine. There was no clean water, only dirty puddles eroding skinny dirt roads. Of course there was trash covering every square inch of ground in the vacinity. Skinny blistered dogs were running around trying to find shade from the 97 degree heat and the 46 percent humidity. The smell was just bad. No other way to describe it. And the flies…
I don’t know why I was so surprised to come to find out that people lived here, but for some reason I was shocked.
I was even more surprised to see smiles. Everyone I caught eyes with gave me a grin. Little naked baby girls covered in dirt ran around giggling. Wrinkly dark skinned old people gave us friendly waves. Shirtless tattooed men shook our hands.
I was also surprised to see their worth ethic. Despite the heat and the gross task, people picked through stuff that must have been picked over dozens of times already. There were young men that eagerly surrounded our truck, and jumped right in the garbage searching for gems in the rubbish. And they did so without any form of disgust. There was a girl who couldn’t careless that she was covered head to toe in grime, or that rotten milk had just spilled down her leg.
For her it was just another day and that’s what you did at 11 o’clock.
These people could only afford food based on how many plastic bottles they had collected that day. Yet they welcomed us, accepted our prayers and didn’t complain about their circumstances in the slightest. They were digging throughout the trash willingly because that’s how they survive. These people walk around all day searching through rotten garbage, dealing with the fly infestation and living through the dirt and smell yet I couldn’t even bear to shovel trash for an hour without hating my circumstances. Rather than being disgusted with the piles of garbage I was disgusted with myself.
I realized how much I take for granted. I have so much and I recognize how blessed I am to be able to live the lifestyle I live. One where I don’t have to shovel trash for a living and I can sleep in a bed without the smell of spoiled food taking over my dreams. I never worry about where my next meal comes from or if my water will give me cholera.
Although we hadn’t really made an impact on too many people at the dump the dump had made an impact on us. I am forever a little more grateful for what I have because of that experience.
*First Photo by @keenphoto.
Do you feel called to share the love of Christ with those in the dumps of Central America? Click here to read more about trips to Nicaragua.
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