PLEASE REMEMBER THE LESS FORTUNATE THIS CHRISTMAS - Christmas in the Slums Surrounding the Landfill A Photo Essay by Aksel Martin Lawrence, Photojournalist See the photos that accompany this in Aksels Album here: https://facebook/AkselMartinLarsen/media_set?set=a.10152578064124639.1073741829.717394638&type=3 Where shanties are nestled on top of a landfill, there is a small community. A small community, where around 25.000 impoverished people live in the slums surrounding the landfill. For survival, people are forced to scavenge themselves through the existence like humanized rats. Every day, an army of thousand scavengers wait for the garbage trucks to come in and drop off fresh garbage from the metropolis of Manila, so they can pick through it for recyclables, trade their collections of plastics, tires and metals to a junk dealer. On a good day, a scavenger can make around 2 - 3 USD. Frequently fights break out over territories of garbage, when children roam the mountains alongside their fathers and mothers helping to supplement the familys income. Another important livelihood here is charcoal production, which is made by slowly burning old toxic-laden wooden furniture in an anaerobic environment. The charcoal can be sold to make fire for cooking, as the community is left without electricity. A whole industry has emerged around collecting left over food (pagpag) that otherwise would be thrown out from the nearby restaurants. The dirt is being shaken off the edible portions of the food where after the food is being reprocessed and sold or eaten – often the only the only meal a day for many people. The charcoal making process itself produces toxic smokes the residents unavoidably inhale. They will not die immediately, but the long-term effect for the lungs and the respirations system is fatal. The scavengers are working amidst domestic, industrial and hospital waste, but usually cannot afford protective equipment. Education is out of reach. Toothless, barefooted, undernourished children roam the streets naked along with stray dogs. People die every day unremembered. Death is as common as birth, and the cycle of life continues in seemingly hopeless misery. There is no sanitation, neither water supply nor drainage. All the waste goes into a ditch and flows out to the sea, where the slum dwellers clean themselves and wash their clothes in disease infested water. Some sleep in the open air amongst the rubbish, rottenness, excreta, fumes, rats and the continuous noise from garbage trucks. Others stay in cramped huts butted onto the landfill without foundation; unfit for habitation of human beings. The makeshift housing of sheet metal, cardboard and old car parts often house three generations. Old bedsprings serve as fences and security doors. Even though the shacks only seem having been built for temporary usage, they are decades old – so is the poverty here. The hope of the people here lies in their own hands, hard work, creativity and a strong – often Christian belief. It does not help to wait for public services that never will arrive or on help organizations and human rights workers that come - and go (read: disappear). As I leave the waterfront where kids bathe and play among the floating trash, I notice the curious eyes of a little girl following me. She is slender and has sharply demarcated cheek bones. Her hair is messy and dishevelled, her flip-flops broken and of two different types, while her ripped t-shirt is too big transforming it into a dress for her. The little girl is covered from head to toe in multiple layers of soot, as if she had been working in a coalmine for weeks. As in a modern aged version of H. C. Andersen’s Danish fairy-tale: The little match girl, she wanders around the landfill like an ownerless dog most probably daydreaming hoping for better times to come in a reality escapism. The girl accompany me through the slum dwellings. When I stop up to take a photo or chat with the locals, she stops up as well. She keeps a distance but carefully watches my moves – almost as if she worries about me and wants to take care of me. She is shy but her curiosity seem to pacify her shyness. At one point she even went to take my hand. I believe my different looks and disoriented presence entertained her. She could not help but smiling, when I wiped my face and my paper towel became black with grime. I assume she smiles as she does not know any better and happiness is relative phenomenon. It is as if the smile of the people of the slum is fading away the older they get and the more insight they have with the sad destiny they are facing. This is the place the little girls call her home. This is her neighbourhood. This is her story. This is the world and the place she knows. A place where other people dispose their garbage; that is the place the little girl calls her home. At the top of the landfill, the little girl meets tree other kids she seems to be acquainted with. They have found some light bulbs. With small bare hands, they break the light bulbs and try pulling the coiled copper from the bottoms, as cobber represents a high value on the resale market. From the top of the landfill you can see the sprawling parts of Manila with the high-rises of the citys financial district, Makati in the distance. Life here is different with its hedonistic lifestyle, nice restaurants, conspicuous shopping, luxury cars and class differentiating VIP set-ups in one of the most highly stratified societies in the world. The gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” is significant with an estimated 50 % of the inhabitants living in slum areas according to UNICEF. There are signs of money and wealth, but here on top of this landfill, there are just the little girl I met and three other kids, who most probably will never get to know, what any of that means. For me it sinks to a humiliating low, when people are diminished with no other choice than having to put trash foods in their mouths to sustain a living. It is disturbing. It is a tragedy. It is a scandal. It is a disgrace. It is a foul and fetid testimony that some people do not care. In addition, the place can be seen as a symbol of the Philippine government’s failure to provide the most essential services - even offering a semblance of a hope and dignity to its people. Often the strength of a society can be measured in terms of how the weak of a society is treated. Instead, it is prioritized to allocate vast amounts of money into military spending and “bottomless pocket money” for deeply corrupted governmental officials. Personally, I was touched like never before. It was impossible for me to leave this place with dry eyes. During the emotional roller coaster ride, I felt hopelessness, powerlessness - and uncomfortable strolling around the landfill with a camera documenting the “real reality”. My intention with the voyeurism of the slums was not to turn poverty into degrading entertainment, but rather to increase/ awaken social awareness. I was wishing and hoping I could issue a one-way ticket out of the cycle of poverty to the people that crossed my path there. My experience in the slums taught me that sympathy is more important than pity. It brought light to the realities that still exist in our time and altered the context in which I perceived poverty. Not only poverty is found here. The thick garbage and smoke could not obstruct me from seeing that in one of the world’s harshest environments, some of the friendliest and warmly smiling souls could be found. I witnessed the devastating practical challenges of hunger resulting from extreme poverty, but also beautiful people living below the poverty line. The landfill is a creative place, where ingenuity is a survival skill and new inventions are born. People who live here are resourceful, appreciative and through necessity become experts in recycling and making use of things. The creativity and people’s ability to help each other and value the small things in life, promotes a different way of life other more well off societies could learn from in their life in the top of Maslow’s legendary hierarchy of needs. Especially now around Christmas time, where people in developed countries stress around getting sore in their credit card arms from excessive swiping of the credit card while shopping (the new age religion for many people) - in a commercialized era, where the story about Jesus, charity and the ten commandments tend having been replaced by the story about Santa Claus, materialism and the ten shopping offers. Remember, that the world has resources enough to satisfy everyones need, but not enough for everyones greed… Merry Christmas - Aksel, December 2014
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 16:57:58 +0000
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