January 1, 2014

I have been absent in the blog world recently, I guess because I have been living life more and doing less writing!
My topic today is GARBAGE! As usual, they do it a bit differently here. Garbage pick-up is three days a week. Pick-up consists of everyone putting out their garbage by 6 AM, but watching it so that the street dogs don’t rip it open before the truck comes. The truck that comes is a large open bed truck with slatted sides. A few guys will walk along tossing the garbage up to the 5 or 6 guys in the back of the truck, who immediately open the garbage and sort it, taking out anything of value. While this truck stinks and it, of course, is literally filled with garbage, it is an organized mess. When the truck fills up, they head off to the dump on the south side of town.
When the truck shows up at the dump, it dumps the refuse in large piles, where a small army of people “attack” the garbage to see if there is anything of value that they can sell or use themselves. This is not a past time, this is a way of making a living for them and for some this is a generational living.
Yesterday, Stephen and I had the opportunity to join a group of Nicaraguans who weekly go to the dump and serve a meal. Today was a special day because we also brought gifts for them for the New Year- rice, beans, sugar, toilet paper, etc…
Mario shared a devotional with the people, and then asked them, “What do you praise God for?” There were not a lot of answers, they seemed a little shy to speak up, but some of the answers were: food to eat, that I can breathe my next breath, that God loves me, I am healthy, that I have made it through another year. Humbling.
When I looked down at the ground during the devotions, I saw the leg of a Barbie doll, a plastic computer part, a needle, torn plastic, the lid to a water bottle, my tennis shoes, and the polished toe nails of the extremely dirty, flip-flopped foot of the woman next to me.
Lunch was served, we had to reuse plates and silverware, they asked us to fill whatever container that had to carry food in- empty formula containers, the bottom of a two liter soda pop bottle. With shy smiles, they took the food and gifts, thankfully returning for more until everything was gone. The poor of the poor.
We packed up everything and headed back to Granada to our food, home, computers, and concerns, and they headed back to the garbage piles wrapped from head to toe to try and escape the heat of the day. Contrast.
Yesterday was filled with Happy New Year (Feliz An~o Nuevo). I’ve seen today that the outlook is different for all of us, but thankfulness to God is a constant!
Love, Natalie