A dumpsite is the last place
you‘d expect to find colors vivid and alive. A corner of the Calajunan Dumpsite
proves that assumption wrong.
The backhoe we are on steadily makes
its way to the far side of the Calajunan Dumpsite. Plowing through mud and
garbage, each sudden jolt of the vehicle threatens to throw us off and feed us
to the heavy-set metal wheels below. The main dumpsite starts to resemble a
murky hill as we go farther away. Smoke continues to rise from this decaying
mound, the result of an accidental fire a few days before. Minors scavenging
for scraps had found unlit firecrackers amid the trash and set them on fire.
There are surprisingly many children here, rummaging through piles of trash,
playing with their plastic bag kites. It’s hard to swallow that this is all
they have as their playground.
As the backhoe reaches level ground, we
start to take in the view. Hectares of garbage laid on the ground. Plastic,
scrap metal, and stray branches, all unsegregated. All these clashing colors
sitting side by side looking surreal, overwhelming, and oddly beautiful.
Here men, women, and children endure
the heat beating down their backs, to look through other people’s trash. So
that at the end of the day they may bring home, more or less a hundred and
fifty pesos to their families. A day’s wage for a simple meal they can share
with each other or for their son’s baon when he goes to school the next day, or
for the cough medicine tatay needs to take to get well.
I was going to name this article “Where
Colors go to Die,” but seeing how the children there smiled even though they
weren’t in the most ideal of places and how hard the people strained themselves
to provide for their families, Calajunan could just be where these people’s
colors start to bloom.
