Stayin' Alive

You walk through the graveyard to get there. They bury their dead above ground and they rest in ornate homes. Some are fancier than others, but all in all, it doesn't look like such a bad place to rest for eternity. There are benches and flowers everywhere..and the eeirie presence of black vultures circling the air.

We're getting close. You can smell it. We veer off, down a small hill and the vultures are getting thicker as I step over a few more graves. And then, for the first time, I see where the vultures land.

It looks and smells like a mountain of shit has melted here. And, in essence, it has--Guatemala City's mountain of shit. The dump encompasses my entire range of vision...a hill dripping with god-knows-what refuse. People with bags line up like ushers around the yellow dump trucks. I don't know what they look for. I don't know what they find. I'm not sure if I want to.

Claudio, our guide, begins to tell us about this place that has been the only source of livlihood for so many people of the city. His grandparents and parents worked there; he always wanted to work there as a child.
I think back to when I was little--my parents both had previous marriages with no children. Consequently, I believed that everyone had to get married once before they found their real life partner and had kids. I thought that all people belonged to country clubs and believed in Santa Claus. And spoke English. Kids are funny that way-- the only world we can get our mind around is our own--it's frighteningly true for adults, as well.

Claudio tells us that until recently, there were no regulations on the dump. Drug dealers milled about. Children worked there alongside their parents. Children bought drugs for their parents. Children sold drugs for their parents. Children gave their parents the money they earned, and their parents bought alcohol and/or drugs...which left the kids to find food in the garbage dump. Food...from a place where all the waste--human, toxic, and otherwise--is put to rest. Imagine that being your entire world.

You see and hear all this, watching the vultures and shifting your weight against a gravestone and there is simply nothing to say or feel. It suddenly feels like my wardrobe of expressions is empty and I have nothing to wear on my face. We begin to walk back and Claudio talks about how, if not for Camino Seguro, where he is now a Social Worker, he would be in the dump at this very moment. I want to listen...as we walk pass a woman selling flowers on the side of the street. They're beautiful. I want to ask Claudio everything. But my vocabulary (especially my Spanish one) is as empty as my face... as we walk past a dead dog in the street. My legs sort of feel like spaghetti tossed into boiling water.

We get back to the project. And I lie down on one of the lunch benches. It's sort of like the balance beam of nap taking--on the bench. The neatness of this particular rest seems extremely important. If I lie down on the grass, and don't use my muscles, it's possible that I will turn to liquid, seep into the ground and simply disappear. On the bench there is something to focus on...a reason not to let go.

The afternoon kids begin to file in for lunch. I serve lunch a bit mechanically, until my boys show up and ask for more tortillas than they're allotted, which I give them--we wink and smile at one another. It's against the rules, and for good reason, not give out extra tortillas. But I'm empty and feeling selfish so I give for entirely selfish purposes...I'm trying to inhabit my body again.

Upstairs, in the classroom, Blanca (the teacher) tells me I am going to lead a dance for the Welcome Stretch. The boys dutifully line up, facing me, in rows on the rooftop deck and the opening lines of "Stayin' Alive" launch from the boombox. Let the games begin--if it's disco they want, it's disco they'll get. We spin and jump and sprinkler and skip...mostly we laugh in discord and unison...it begins with me leading and ends as a great mesh of madness.

I look over at the cloud of vultures...still circling...and back at the kids. It's so close. But-- still--it's another world here...a world with a lot more than garbage...and that's a lot for all of us to get our minds around.