Friday, December 08, 2006
Levi and Isolde: Basura babes
Yesterday, Levi and I visited "la basura," Leon´s dump, where people live and eke out a living.
Somehow, though, the cabbie got the impression that we wanted to visit El Fortin, a small fortress located a ways past the dump. (For the history junkies: This fortress is where Anastasio Somoza tortured and killed his political prisoners. It was overthrown by the first guerilla war in 1979.)
As we started on the winding road to the fortress, we had to stop, as the trash had spilled all over the road.
No problem, I said to the cabbie. Can we walk? My intention was to speak with the folks who work the garbage, but he thought I wanted to trek through hills of trash to El Fortin, ankle-deep in syringes, bloody gauze and rotten bananas. All of which, by the way, is smoldering, on fire or being attacked by swarms of flies.
So we did it. Alphonso, the cabbie, was wearing his Sunday best, as it was one of the year´s biggest Catholic holidays. He kept stopping to polish off his shoes, whining like a school boy. On our walk back from the fortress, he looked out over the vista of trash and cried, "Donde esta mi carro?"
In the trash there are makeshift homes and small herds of cows grazing. There are horses that appear totally lost on some random trash cliff. There are thousands of flies everywhere, except where there are small fires. Small children, women and men hunt sift through with bare hands, dodging the needles, looking for gems that might pay for their next meal. A woman named Mariella Martinez had found a new pair of girl´s panties. Her grandsons were loading up plastic bottles. There are expired fruits and Daniel Ortega fliers, bottles of expired antibiotics and empty paint cans.
Levi, the environmentalist, was stricken. He explained to me that burning disease cultures and other medicinal and hazardous waste is bad. Burning it is bad for the air, and the rains only increase the damage. Of course, Levi made it sound a lot smarter than I am now, so you´ll have to ask him to elaborate.
We´re home in a week, folks.
Check out Levi´s entry. It´s happier and explains the rest of our day.
Somehow, though, the cabbie got the impression that we wanted to visit El Fortin, a small fortress located a ways past the dump. (For the history junkies: This fortress is where Anastasio Somoza tortured and killed his political prisoners. It was overthrown by the first guerilla war in 1979.)
As we started on the winding road to the fortress, we had to stop, as the trash had spilled all over the road.
No problem, I said to the cabbie. Can we walk? My intention was to speak with the folks who work the garbage, but he thought I wanted to trek through hills of trash to El Fortin, ankle-deep in syringes, bloody gauze and rotten bananas. All of which, by the way, is smoldering, on fire or being attacked by swarms of flies.
So we did it. Alphonso, the cabbie, was wearing his Sunday best, as it was one of the year´s biggest Catholic holidays. He kept stopping to polish off his shoes, whining like a school boy. On our walk back from the fortress, he looked out over the vista of trash and cried, "Donde esta mi carro?"
In the trash there are makeshift homes and small herds of cows grazing. There are horses that appear totally lost on some random trash cliff. There are thousands of flies everywhere, except where there are small fires. Small children, women and men hunt sift through with bare hands, dodging the needles, looking for gems that might pay for their next meal. A woman named Mariella Martinez had found a new pair of girl´s panties. Her grandsons were loading up plastic bottles. There are expired fruits and Daniel Ortega fliers, bottles of expired antibiotics and empty paint cans.
Levi, the environmentalist, was stricken. He explained to me that burning disease cultures and other medicinal and hazardous waste is bad. Burning it is bad for the air, and the rains only increase the damage. Of course, Levi made it sound a lot smarter than I am now, so you´ll have to ask him to elaborate.
We´re home in a week, folks.
Check out Levi´s entry. It´s happier and explains the rest of our day.
