In trash, searching for survival

3-15-14

Christine Rushton, Murrow College Backpack Journalist

The dumps in Zacapa, Guatemala.              Christine Rushton | Murrow College

Squatting in a heap of rotting trash, I lifted my camera to focus on a young Guatemala girl. She paused at my movement and tightly clutched the treasure she had just found: a discarded, teal plastic bottle ring. Her feet, bare and smeared with the black ash, rested on shards of broken glass and decomposing fruit.

Christine Rushton | Murrow College

Against a background of people scouring, collecting and burning garbage in the 95-degree weather, she looked into my lens and smiled.

The volunteers working with Hearts in Motion to bring supplies and aid to the people in Guatemala know the need outweighs what the team can offer. However, one student on the trip said if one life is changed, then the trip was worth the effort.

Karen Scheeringa-Parra, the executive director of HIM, said, “It’s not about the Tylenol, it’s about the relationship.” She explained that showing people compassion lasts longer in memory than any medicine.

One HIM team on Saturday put together lunches of black bean and rice sandwiches to bring for the families living in the dumps. The line of Guatemalans following the buses they knew carried food stretched down the plastic-lined road. For them, a meal usually consists of the leftovers they can dig out of the city’s trash.

A veteran-volunteer for HIM looked out at the landscape and asked me if I could write about this experience. He said photos tell only part of the story; pictures can’t capture the smell.

Breathing in the aroma of putrid decomposition and burning plastic, I shoved down the urge to cry. The Guatemalan girl still smiles despite her unsanitary living conditions. As I watched her walk to put her new discovery in the tarp-covered shelter she calls home, I realized that smile reflected the hope to which she must cling.