One year, One bike, One dream: El Basurero, Zone 3, Guatemala City

It's hard to see but there is close to 100 Guajeros in this photo.

December 14, 2009.

To our luck the wind is up, blowing the overwhelming smell of rotting trash, burning rubber, and methane gas over our heads, all of which is coming from the largest garbage dump in Central America. El Basurero, Zona 3, La ciudad de Guatemala. The city dump consumes over 40 acres in the middle of Guatemala's capital city, and is constantly moving due to the displacement of land and trash by the river that flows out the bottom of the dump. Around the dump thousands of "Guajeros" (those who live off the dump) can be found in their well organized squatter communities. These Guajeros, remove more than 1,000,000 pounds of recyclables and random trash daily, prolonging the life of the dump, and sustaining their families from the money they earn selling the recyclables back to individual vendors. Though, for a day in the dump, where they are exposed to medical waste, methane gases, and trash landslides, and many more hazards, they make around 40 quetzales, or 4 to 5 USD, hard to fathom.

We, My family and I, are down here working with the organization, Camino Seguro (Safe Passage). This organization, founded by the late Hanley Denning, provides opportunities through education to not only the children of the Guajeros but also the parents. The kids have a safe atmosphere in which they can focus away from the hardships of everyday life, and develop confidence through art, reading, writing, and sports. Also the children are provided with proper nutrition, medical care, and are deloused weekly, all these opportunities never existed for the prior generations. The Women's Literacy Program, is helping the mothers in learning to read and write, and now due to a spiked interested a Men's Literacy Program has started that includes 6 fathers.

Our project down here is to build a Bouldering Wall at the Guarderia, located just over 100 yards from the city dump, and amidst the overwhelming community of squatters. The Bouldering Wall will be part of their sports program, allowing for leadership skills to be developed. It is a two sided wall, allowing for multiple uses, on one side we have climbing, but the other can be used for art projects, or even as a scoreboard for their multipurpose sports field located right next to our Bouldering Wall. I really believe that climbing is a means by which so many important life skills can be taught, practiced, and learned. These kids will now be exposed to a sport that kindles personal development. They will see that failure is common, but only a temporary setback, and through practice and hard work, what once they may not have been able to do, they will be able to climb up with ease. Each route set will provide goals for these kids to work towards, with each day they spend working on these goals they will be able to see their personal improvement, and how sometimes it may take an uncountable number of tries in order to reach a goal, but that the goal is always possible.

What we are doing down here is truly minor on the scale of what has been done before us. But I hope that this wall will have an effect on the lives of maybe even just a few of the kids down here, allowing for them to open their eyes up to greater ambitions and opportunities, which are so often overshadowed by the hardships of everyday life....