after viewing the yawning ravine of trash which supports (relatively speaking) about 2,000 guatemalans each day, we visited the primary school at Safe Passage (Camino Seguro). i took this picture from the play structure that a group of u.w. students built last year. the contrast between the vibrant school grounds and the rusting shacks these children live in couldn't be more stark. (see www.safepassage.org for more about the non-profit we are working with.)this school is a refuge for children who's parents work in the dump collecting recyclables, tossed out rotting food to supplement their diet and anything else with which to build ramshackle homes for their families. without safe passage, these kids would be doomed to eek out an existence just as their parents do now. they would be trapped in the hideous, mind-numbing cultivation of garbage just to survive. it is so sobering to watch these people comb through mountains of steaming trash, much as they used to cultivate their land in the highlands of guatemala. (this land was stolen from them as a courtesy of the u.s. and guatemalan governments.) we have so much to be proud of . . .
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