Trash: Parts One–Two

People say to me, ‘I guess you just never know what you’ll find, sifting through rubbish! Maybe one day you’ll find something nice.’

I am one of the rubbish boys, picking through the stuff this city throws away.

The interesting parcel that looked like something nice wrapped up?

Two little photos of a girl in school dress. Hard to say how old, but I reckoned seven or eight, with long dark hair and beautiful eyes.

You don’t see many police in Behala, because in a shanty you sort out your own problems.

We watched the car, rocking over the ruts and holes, the lights going up and down.

Two rooms built out of truck pallets, with plastic and canvas holding it fast, and it’s stacked over three families below.

‘Oh yes,’ said Gardo, sneering. ‘You really think they’ll give it? You taken in by that? And if they do, boy—you think he’ll hold onto ten thousand?’

Then someone found a handbag, and there was real excitement, lots of shouting: it was blue, and old, with one stringy little handle, so it was thrown back, everyone very disappointed, and the police just watched us work, looking grim and their patience running out.

We jumped early because you don’t ever want to be seen getting off the train. If guards or even porters see you, you can get a real thrashing.

So now we were all making our way up the platform, just a straggling bunch of three barefoot boys; we might have been invisible.

We got down on the tracks, and we started to run fast. Five minutes later, we got among bushes and bramble, and there was a small pile of concrete sleepers to sit on, and we were out of breath.

It’s also so hot, and around the dry season it gets stifling.

The school is made of large metal boxes—the iron containers you see on ships and trucks. Ten were donated to start the Mission. They were bolted together, and windows and doors were hacked out—there it was, an instant metal school.

I would have to give him food too, because he was evidently starving.

Why can’t you speak on the chapel stairs? Let me tell you—somewhere it is relevant.

When squatters had their houses bulldozed, Pascal Aguila forced the government to find them land.

His final act—the one that killed him—was to expose three senators who’d been siphoning off public taxes and stowing them off-shore.

They all resigned, and the prosecution rumbles on.

I sometimes sit on the stairs, under the plaque we had made, and I think about this brave man.

Then I looked beyond him, and saw he had two friends with him—slight, skinny boys.

He had long arms and, even with the poor diet he had, the poise—the grace—of an athlete.

You look at the mountains of garbage, and the children on them, like so much more garbage, and it’s easy to think what you do in a school like this is of absolutely no consequence or good to anyone.

I reminded him that the school was set up for exactly that purpose: to let the children work while providing education. If they attend five days, they get two kilos of rice and a few bits and pieces extra, depending on what’s been donated—that is the incentive.

The policeman said a few things to me, just casual questions about who I was.