Images of Guatemala

by Coleen Myers

I grew up on a farm right on the edge of a small town (2,000 population) in west central Iowa. In the 1950s and 60s, every little town maintained a dump or landfill. We had timberland on our farm where my dad pastured milk cows, but at the far end, the city rented ground with lots of ravines and maintained the city dump where they were always burning things. We usually didn't get the odor at our home, but sometimes when we would bring the cows up for milking or when we were out riding our horses we would smell the burning dump. I even own two oak chairs that I scavenged from the dump one Sunday afternoon.

So, when we headed for the Guatemala City dump on Monday, July 15th, I was expecting the smells I remembered from my childhood, but there wasn't any burning going on and the smell wasn't as bad as I expected. It was a clear sunny day and that probably made a difference too.

When we got to the bottom of the dump, Douglas was guided to a parking spot by some of the men working the area. We unloaded the boxes of bread we had. Marnie, the volunteer from Pennsylvania, had ridden down with us and she explained in Spanish to the people that gathered that we had more coming and would distribute the bread when the next load came. She asked them to line up and wait and they did. There were two boys at the front of the line who reminded me of my grandsons because they were goofing around by pushing and shoving each other, laughing as they did it. It seemed to me they were just being typical boys.

While we waited for Douglas to come back with the rest of the bread and our group, people wandered by or came and got into line. Three women seemed to be admiring each other's finds. It appeared that they looked for cloth. I noticed one woman had some very white pieces of cloth and I wondered how she had been able to keep cloth that white in a place like the dump. Later, these women seemed particularly pleased to get the large plastic bags that the loaves of bread had originally been packed in---perfect to store their cloth!

Once in a while, a load would be dumped out at the top and all the garbage would come tumbling down towards us, with run-away tires rolling even farther. There were little shacks here and there, appearing to offer protection from the sun and rain. In one shack not too far away from where we stood, it looked like a woman was cooking something and then selling it to customers who came and went.

I know that I would not want to live there for I am too used to the luxuries that I take for granted. At the same time I sensed that most of the people there had community: they knew each other; there was a certain structure to their days and existence; they had independence and were doing what one has to do to survive and weren't begging. At the same time my heart went out to the children. Unless they have an opportunity for education and a different life-style, they will never know what they can achieve beyond the dump. As we drove away that day I thanked God for people like Gladys and Edgar who run The Potter's House for their willingness to listen to God's call and to share the story of the dump with the rest of the world.

Coleen Myers lives in Davenport IA.