it can get hard.

cold early early moning shower, need to do my laundry by hand and i have a ton, my mom here asks how i{m doing and serves me breakfast, i run out the door, jump on an unconfortably cram packed bus and walk into dos generaciones where they generously recieve me excited that i{m back from being sick, and then the electricity goes out and the hellish heat begins again. We take the surveys to the dump to ask the 14-20 year olds about what they know about human rights concerning immigration. Yes, i said we go to the dump to do this. we drive passed houses that has their front and back yard as a huge pile of trash as big as thier house. There is burning trash fumes flying through the air they breath every day. if i never smell burning trash again i will be extremly happy and that much further from gagging....and that is where they live. their houses are made of rusted sheet metal.
my question, where is the dignity in digging through trash to make a living. working in the dump to find recycables to put food on the table for your family. why would anyone have to do that. what has the world done wrong that there are people living in the dump, working in the dump, pulling what they have in their houses out of what other people throw away. other peoples trash is their lives. Human dignity? i dont think there is. We went into a house in the dump to do the survey with a 15 year old girl. her dad came in and told us about how he has lived there all his life. he is illiterate and works all day in the trash and forces his children to go to school so they can leave that life. a little boy ran through the house. oh my God this little boy. he was so dirty and he had that little pot belly that you see in pictures of children who are malnurished. He wasnt sad, he was a child running around, dirty with a pot belly, only wearing shorts, and he really lives in poverty. he lives in the dump with his family who works, but they are still poor due to the structure lack of resources. As we sat there, flys swarmed. It was so unconfortable. There are my flys everywhere in the dump that in any barn i can think of in the states. it{s like a pile of horse poop with flys, one huge pile of horse poop....that is how many flys there are living where these people live....where only flys should live.
I cannot describe what it is to walk through the burning trash, through the dump, into houses there, and then out of the dump, walking into acaualinca and still just into more poverty and more pot bellied children. Those places, those comercials, they are real. i{m sorry but they are. The water running down dirt rodes of houses made of trash...that is real. You dont want your skin to touch that water because you dont know what kind of water it is. Imagine living in that each day. It hurts so much just to walk through it each day i go to service, but living there...
And then i think about God, what i wrote about poverty in the last reflection. It isnt God turning his back on these people or their need for God. It is the people that have resources, that have opportunities. It is the structure and the God in us that have to do something. There are so many calls in the bible to give to people with nothing. To stop for the forgiener (outcast, poor, whatever)as a good samaritain...As christains do we ignore the bible? Do we only do what is confortable in the bible for ourselves? Do we live in a structure that is unjust just because it is easier that challenging that?
I get it...it is like Chan Khong says, I can explain it all i want, but until someone feels it for themselves, until someone is they, they wont get it. They wont leave the confort of their family and lives unless they have experiences it.
These are just thoughts. I think they help me more than anyone...but it is also why i am who i am. I know it can be hard to understand some of my thoughts or why i want to push people further, or why i do what i do, but my answer is from Learning True Love (a book), until you are willing to experiece it, you may never really understand. That is something i need to remember also.
But that dump, that lack of human dignity, that is not right. I don´t think to call ourselves christians and to call ourselves compasionate, we can just say there is nothing we can do about that and not ever try. That to me is a lie and the easy way. That dump makes me want to cry every time i go through. Sending gifts and playing is just a good intention too. That is so hard. I am there with Nicaragians, and i see missionary groups go through handing children toys and having good intentions, but sometimes those intentions are more harmful than good. Sometimes they step on the toes of justice organizations because charity is not going to change injustice. it will be there for a time, and gone the next moment. It never changes the situation. The group comes and gives things, and then after they leave, the people go back to their poverty. i{m going to stop now. This is long, and i{m sure it was not fun to read. I promise, it is not fun to think about and experience either. Think about it though. Human Dignity, Justice vs. Charity, Our call as christians...really, thank you if you read the whole thing.