21/09/2015
Yesterday I visited one of the most wretched places I have ever been - maybe that there is - the Inayawan Rubbish Dump on the outskirts of Cebu City in the Philippines. I went there to distribute solar lights and chargers, but this is about much more than that - nobody, anywhere, should have to live like this.
Read my account below....
I am taken by an old bicycle sidecar to the dump. Yesterday's heavy rain still lingers on the unmade road, mixed with the spilled rubbish it creates a dark grey looking mud with a disturbingly thick, oily surface. We pass truck after truck piled with hundreds (maybe thousands) bags of refuse. I'm already struggling with the smell. The rotting garbage and humidity combine to produce stench so strong and thick that you can feel it on your skin. And today isn't even that hot.
We stop on the outskirts of the "village" as you can't get any vehicle, even the bicycle, through the narrow gaps that separate the homes.
Somewhat ominously, given the frequent heavy rains here, it's a downhill walk into the community from the road. I'm taken aback by the first home I am shown through. It belongs to a sweet, old lady with bright eyes, a wide smile but few teeth. It's nothing but a collection of materials from the dump; bamboo, plywood and cardboard. It's tiny, extremely cramped and dark. I can make out a kind of sleeping area, and a "kitchen". There's no running water, no toilet, no food that I can see. There a few old cups, and plates on a makeshift bench, and an area to light fire with a blacked pot. The same grey sludge is on the ground. It has been covered, somewhat hopefully, with old bags to make a sort of patchwork floor.
Everything here is from the dump. All the homes, the clothes, the shoes, even the food is "recycled" from the dump.
Chicken bones, old French fries and half-eaten burgers from MacDonald and the local Jelliebee food chains are collected, reheated, resold and re-eaten. I hear a story of a rotting pig carcass that was tossed onto the dump. It was quickly collected, cut into portions and divided among the residents.
Not surprisingly, pigs thrive; they can eat anything the dump can produce. The dogs however look to be starving - a sign that they come a distant third in the fierce competition for food scraps.
Officially the dump closed a few years ago, but the rows of trucks tell a different story. Influential local business people make a tidy profit from the scavengers so ensure a steady flow of garbage. There is a hierarchy among the dump divers, and a myriad of strategies and tactics employed to maximise their return. If you are in the game, it's easy to identify where the trucks originate from and therefore those with the best potential. The top guys aren't even at the dump - these are the collectors - the guys who get first pickings in wealthy neighbourhoods where they pick-up the trash.
In among the wretched squalor, there are incongruously bright moments. Children giggling and yelling out greetings; a women carefully washing and pressing what look like school uniforms.
In the middle of the dump I meet Ganalgi. He is 8 months old, but looks half that. Ganalgi's name is an odd mix of his parents names; Gerald and Alma. This apparently common practice in this area. Ganalgi is the second generation of his family to be born in the dump as both Gerald and Alma were also born there. They were married 2 years ago when Gerald was 20 and Alma 15.
Their home is largely made up of various bits of plastic sheeting, strung together around a centre pole. Again old bags cover the ground in a vain attempt to hold back the toxic sludge.
Gerald, whose warm and engaging personality and "skater boy" haircut and jewellery, seems at odds with his circumstances, is the families sole bread winner. He earns money scavenging in the dump. His specialty is plastic bottles; collected and crushed, he gets 3 pesos ($0.10) per kilogram. Uncrushed, a kilo of bottles is a lot of bottles. Alma who has a quick, bright smile but says little, instead deferring to her husband, hopes to be back working in the dump soon, as Ganalgi has been accepted into a local NGO's child care program.
Gerald personifies the complexity of the dump site people and I suppose all of our relationships with wherever we call "home". Years previously, a local NGO accepted him into an education program, whereby he was sponsored to go to school by a French family. He did well at school and was encouraged to go further with his education. However, like a prisoner released from prison who commits a crime to return to a life he understands, Gerald preferred to start work, get married and stay in the dump site with his family. Now with Ganalgi in the tow, the cycle will continue - assuming Ganalgi survives the pneumonia and the myriad of other ailments that claim the lives of infants in this place.
The one thing that may prise Gerald and the rest of the scavengers from their home is progress. The site used to sit along the Cebu coastline, but a Government land reclamation program has seen land literally pop out of the ocean upon which shopping malls, apartments and new luxury residences are appearing.
No doubt it won't be long for these new residents tire of their neighbours squalor and the Government will raze the dump to make way for more shiny new developments.
Who knows where Gerald, Alma and Ganalgi will go then. The next place nobody else wants to live. Could it be worse? It is definitely a possibility.
