"The body is the harp of the soul. It is yours to bring forth from it sweet music or confused sounds" Kahlil Gibran

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Where I Live: The Manjai Dump


There are few words that describe some of the places I have been or the things I have seen since I have been here. I figured I would start creating a pictoral account of every place I have visited.  I was going through all of my pictures and I wanted people to get a feel for what Manjai Dump is like.

Manjai Dump is situated maybe a 10 minute donkey ride from my house and my weekly bag of trash that I give to my local garbage man (man on donkey cart) ends up going to the dump. The dump itself is a place unlike anything I have ever seen. In my mind I remember describing it as "The Mouth of Hell"


Unlike the Buba Gump shrimp company this is trash
There are mounds of trash.
Trash on fire
Trucks and tires in the trash 

Donkey carts of trash

Dogs rummaging through the trash


Tractors of trash

People Riding on the Tractors of trash
People searching through the trash
Food stands for hungry people in the trash


Children searching for valuables and discarded clothes amongst the trash


Entire mountains of pills, syringes, and discarded pharmaceuticals
A haze of toxic smoke above the trash  


And of course ever animal imaginable eating the trash.

Thanks, I plan to work on creating a clear picture on the things here. I don't know what I will work on next but hopefully it will be more uplifting as I personally found the Manjai Dump horrifying. 







3 comments:

  1. Xander-never underestimate the impact your stories and photo have on people back home. Thursday mornings my son is supposed to collect the trash cans and recycling from around the house and put it all in the bins in the garage. That way we can put the trash out Thursday night for early Friday morning pick up. Of course my son forgot to do this chore this morning, so I was staring at the almost full kitchen trash can and mentally outlining the lecture I was going to give the fruit of my womb when he came home from school. I look at the kitchen trash again, after reading your post, and I realize how fortunate we are. After we have sorted out compostables for the garden heap, recyclables for the recycling yard, after reusing and repurposing what all we can, the fact that we still have an almost full kitchen trash can attests to how much we - as a family of three - use on a weekly basis. Your post is very humbling, and inspires me to do a little better on my side of the planet. Peace, my friend.

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  2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs

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  3. I found your blog searching for pictures online. I am a mother of 3 children living in Belgium and I am writing a children's book about poverty. Here is my question: can I use some of your pictures in my book? It would be great! Your pictures are just fantastic, congratulations! I can imagine how hard it must have been to see all this people living in such conditions, mainly the children.

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