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La Chureca
this is at the entrance to one of Managua's dumps, home to 1500 people, mostly children Chapter One (because I think it would kill me to write about it all at once)**
Thinking about my first day in Managua makes me want to cry, get sick and cut myself open. My emotions are too intense. I want to share with you what it feels like, but I'm not that talented.
On the bus on the way to the volcanic lake, you'd never know that the little boy clinging to you, fitting his body into your lap as though he was made for it, all cleaned up in a little orange shirt, smiling and sweet, you'd never believe where he sleeps at night. You'd watch him in the water, the older boy taking his head band off and showing the younger one how to wear it cool, you'd never know... One boy would buy you gum. You know he has no money. Why does he close your hand around it and look away?
So the next day you're on the bus again, you're rubbing bug lotion in your hair and you brace yourself. So many times in your life you have over braced yourself, but this... suddenly the bus dips down. You turn left down
She sells her body
in exchange for recyclables a dirt road you could have easily passed by, never knew existed. You cannot believe where you are.
It sort of feels the way you imagine it would feel to find out that hell is real. Like, people have told you this kind of poverty exists... but you don't know, you're brain won't let you believe, until you see it (and by "you" I mean "me").
Those commercials about the starving children, you get angry at them. You want them to erase the music and that corny guy and his stupid voice and you want the commercials to be more real. You want people to hear the lonely sound of garbage trucks. This is the dump. This is not a movie. No soundtrack please. No white people. No soothing voices. Just shut up. Just play the video. Actually inject some dirt. And make the air so dense you can barely breathe. And... god this is impossible. wtff......
You fall in love with one of the boys there. You think this could have been your life... it could have been. But it wasn't.
Your brain struggles to understand how it makes sense that you get so much
more in life just by being born in the states... I mean, you didn't DO anything more. You just happened to be born on different soil. If you had, by chance, been born in the dump, no matter what you did, no matter how much you sold your soul or how hard you tried, your life would have been already decided. You'd reach 14 and you'd probably start prositituting yourself to garabge men in exchange for recyclables. Because you can't think about anything except how to get your next meal. That is always the one thing on your mind. Then you finally eat, and all you're allowed to think about is how you are going to get enough money or dig through the trash enough to get the next one.
I had a pretty good idea about the way the world worked before I went to Nicaragua... but I never felt it. Something changes when you feel it. Theories are one thing... but once you are there it lives in you. It eats at you. It kills the old you... I died, guys. I don't know how I'm going to adjust.
I have major reverse culture shock to
the states right now. Things are so sterile here. And excessive (but we all knew that huh). And we have it so easy that we create problems for ourselves to make life more interesting. It's fucked up.
I mean, people are just doing the only things they know how to do... but right now I feel like I'm tripping, watching the american lifestyle. There was a sitcom playing on the airplane ride back and just having it in the corner of my eye made me want to throw up. How retarded. How is that sort of thing satisfying? To anyone?
I'm not sure I'm actually ready to talk about this yet.
Anyways, nothing in my life will ever seem that bad ever again. Because I can always work a minimum wage job for a few days and make about what the average rural Nicaraguan makes in a lifetime. And I have a passport. And so fucking much I cannot believe it. It sickens me a little to believe it.
(I'll write about some of the less sad-sounding things about my trip in the next chapter...)
**I have already returned from Nicaragua. This is a summary
Gatos!
he lives in the dump of my experiences there. I think it is important to write about.
To see more pictures from my trip to Nicaragua, follow this link:
http://naropa.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000113&l=40847&id=165100034
and/or this one
http://naropa.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000114&l=b08a8&id=165100034
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bluenazar
non-member comment
A very moving story, its easy to see how now after your travels the states seem so "trippy" Because you have seen the reality, it used to make me angry that the way we westerners shield ourselves from the outside but its better that we use the energy more constructively. Slowly people will change especially if there are more people giving the word out.