Loving the Least of These

This year while the group was here we went to the city dump in Tegucigalpa. I've written about the experience before, but now I've had a little over a month to think about the things that I saw there. And the more I think about it, and the more those faces run through my head the more mad I get. Over 1,200 people live in the dump. They eat there, sleep there, work there. That is their life. They dig through the mounds of trash in search of a 'meal' for themselves, and often for their families. They also dig through the trash for things that might have some monetary value that they could sell. The people living there have built 'houses' that are made of little pieces of cardboard, sticks, and sometimes a little plastic. The houses are only big enough for one or two people, and you can't even stand up in them. Sitting and laying down are your only options. The people there are dirty, they smell, and they are desperate. Many of them don't have shoes, the clothes they wear are dirty and torn. Their hands are caked with dirt and grime from the trash that they dig through for hours everyday. While we were there we handed out bags of food, and small bags of clothes. I watched as they formed a line, we marked their hand with a sharpie marker once they had gone through the line, and when they had gone through they walked to the end of the line, and licked the sharpie mark off their dirty hands in attempt to get more food and clothing.