Return to Nicaragua

« Return to Nicaragua

Eco-tourism has boomed in Costa Rica, and you can hear the shockwaves all the way here in its northern neighbour of Nicaragua. It also has jungles and surfing, fresh lakes, hills and adventurous volcanoes. The country doesn’t begin to approach Costa Rica’s tourist infrastructure, but it’s starting to make a concerted effort, and it certainly has the eco-goods to back it up. In Leon, I do not encounter a single McDonalds, or Starbucks, or any other western chain known for chasing western crowds. Walk in any direction from Central America’s largest cathedral, and you’ll find tiny shops selling local things and local prices (even if by local I mean cellphones and cheap clothes and plastic toys). Young gringos are plentiful, safely roaming around, taking photos, returning from Spanish class. On my first visit, I was charmed, and now I am charmed again.

I was also surprised by Managua, the capital city. Expecting massive crowds, noise, and pollution, instead I discovered a leafy sprawled out city where the traffic runs smooth, the horn is only used in emergencies, and heaving crowds were nowhere to be found. While I noticed plenty of security guards, barbwire and high walls, I didn’t notice much in the way of the elements they are designed to subdue. Even when we headed directly into the largest garbage dump in Central America.

NGO’s are often all that stands between poverty-stricken people and total social collapse. Their work is important, but other than the surge in voluntourism, not the usual fodder for a perky newspaper travel section. For the 28th episode of Word Travels, however, we headed to La Chureca to find out about an organization that has been established to help the kids who literally live in the country’s filth. An estimated 175 families live in this open air garbage dump, earning $1 to $2 a day by sorting through the garbage to recycle plastic and glass containers, brought in by a seemingly endless supply of overflowing garbage trucks. Welcome to the other side of environmentalism. Disease is rampant. Glue sniffing is prevalent. Barefoot men, women and children comb hills of trash, sifting through used condoms, dead animals, rotting food and other waste for anything that can be salvaged or sold. Burning piles of stench create a low-lying muddy cloud, a mist that browns the skin and reddens the eyes. It is the closest version of hell I have seen on my travels, so what the hell am I doing here?

Nica Hope is one of several NGO’s that have been set up to help educate and support the growing number of children living in such conditions. It is spearheaded by Deanna Ford, a young American with a seemingly unlimited supply of hope and compassion. Her acts of kindness and sacrifice give me hope for humanity in general. Yet the cynic in me looks for the catch, the reason why anyone would want to slave away in the oppressive heat of Managua, to help strangers buried in the rubble beneath the bottom rung of the lowest social ladder. It makes me feel terrible, which I suppose is the point. Nica Hope, founded by Deanna in 2007, is clearly the brainchild of someone who knows they can make a difference, and has the education and experience to go about doing it. We meet at Nica Hope’s centre, where a few dozen kids are busy making jewellery. The organization takes them out the dumps, puts them into schools, teaches them skills, hygiene, and that life exists beyond the glue addiction and muck. Simple but creative bracelets, necklaces and earrings are sold around the country, and the money supports the kids and their families. Deanna acknowledges the fact that children, mostly under the age of 10, are indeed working on the premises, but at least its on their own terms, for their own benefit, and away from the diseases, drugs, prostitution and abuse in La Chureca. Nica Hope is not into child labour. Nica Hope is into child saviour.

You can see the brown, acidic fumes of La Chureca hanging over the city from the hills, where the old presidential palace was destroyed along with much of Managua, in the earthquake of 1972 . Over 70 fault lines run through Lake Managua, and the city is sporadically pockmarked from the last big quake, which killed over 5000 people and redesigned the city map. We drive a few blocks from the Nica Hope centre, following beastly garbage trucks with young boys hanging off the end. On a potholed, dusty dirt road, our can edges into the City of Trash. Trash, piled 30 feet high, stretching as far as the eye can see. Burning piles of plastic and rotten food create fires of oil, the gray dust caking the people, animals and shacks found within cleared mounds and tin shacks. We visit a family not far into the dump, the kids barefoot and covered in grime. A baby pig struggles in puddle of mud, a few bony horses, dogs, and cows walk by. One kid is high on glue, his eyes like a pinball, his face alternating between helplessness, and a threatening violent sneer. Four young girls, under the age of 10, walk by with a collection of salvaged garbage. I see a dead bird in a bag, strips of plastic, the odd condom wrapper and syringe. And the trucks keep coming in, one by one, delivering a new round of cast-off misery.

Several Managua tour operators now offer La Chureca drive-ins, where tourists enter, take some photos, and leave in sorrow, but with a good story to tell. Call it Poverty Tourism. You can find it in the townships of Soweto, or in the favelas of Rio. The attraction of seeing the pitiful extent of wretchedness lies on many levels. Some tourists want to see the reality, not just sugarcoated tourist attractions. Some want to understand the poverty, and help in any way they can. Others merely want to feel better about their own lot in life, because no matter how bad it seems, it’s infinitely more pleasant than watching teenage girls whore themselves in a garbage dump. Others seek out photos and fodder for dinner parties. As a travel writer, I’m at odds how to approach this. The line between exploitation and discovery, fun and experience, is often too thin to walk on. I talk about this with Deanna. How can I write about this, and profit from the result? How can I write without being sensationalist? How can I contrast this segment in our TV show with the next one, a thrilling adventure involving carefree backpackers sandboarding off an active volcano? These thoughts swilled in my head like ice cubes in a strong drink, until I finally make peace with a few compromises of my own.
1. Any money I make from this story, if I make it all, gets added to my donation to Nica Hope. $30 a month sponsors a child with education, clothing, food, and most of all a future.
2. If I expose up the misery of Managua without the beauty of Leon, I’d be treating Nicaragua as different, and that’s all Deanna wants us to do: treat these poor kids like they are human beings, and the country like it belongs.

I don’t do well with human zoos, and having visited ugliness the world over, I would and could just as easily visit beauty. The Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, NGO’s like Nica Hope…we cast our lots and choose our path. I look around this dumpsite, and just as its inhabitants scour the filth in the hope of finding value, I scour the despair and pull out the optimism and positive actions of Deanna and her friends. In La Chureca the inhabitants sift through commercial waste in search of the means to sustain their survival. In La Chureca, Nica Hope sifts through human waste in search of potential, and the means to sustain our compassionate humanity.

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