Yesterday I accompanied the Lopez group to visit Los Quinchos, a project working with children in La Chureca, the
La Chureca is home to thousands of people – families who live off the trash of others: they not only sell the recyclables they find in the landfill (metals, glass, plastic), but they also make their houses from what they find (cardboard, plastic), they wear what they find, and they even eat what they find. La Chureca is a place on the edge – of the city (the trash is pushed into Lake Managua), and of society: the people who live there are in constant danger from the smoke and dust; from the garbage trucks and bulldozers which often run people over; from each other – theft, drug use, prostitution and violence are rampant; and from the trash itself. Several years ago two preschool age children, sent by their parents to work in the garbage, died when they ate chocolates they found that had been laced with rat poison.
In the midst of the dump is the Quinchos project, in a small house perched on the edge of a
contaminated lagoon that works with the children of La Chureca, in particular working to rescue children who sniff glue. The Quinchos project at La Chureca feeds the children who go there a daily meal, teaches them to weave hammocks, make jewelry, helps with homework, teaches hygiene, bathes them, dresses wounds and gives nebulizer treatments for breathing problems, which are very common. Though most kids come for the food, those who will give up glue sniffing can often be moved to the Quinchos Filter House in Managua where they receive counseling, then on to the farm in the country, to a half-way house in Granada, and eventually back into society, where many of them work rescuing street children like themselves. Forty percent of the Quinchos staff members are graduates of the program, and in 18 years they have rescued more than 3,000 children from the streets of
Today there are many children at Los Quinchos. The
And for the group from
We as human beings try to avoid pain – seeing another person in a desperate situation is a painful emotional experience for us, and we naturally want to avoid that. If we don’t have to look into the face of a desperately poor person and recognize them as fellow human beings, then we don’t have feel that pain of connection with them. Poverty robs the poor of dignity, of identity.
with the poor, we acknowledge their existence. By going to the dump, seeing and feeling and hearing and smelling where the children of La Chureca live, by talking and playing with those children, by touching them, they allow them the dignity to exist. The poor have faces. The faces of the poor are the faces of Jocelyn, and Juan Carlos and Daniel. What is solidarity? Solidarity is those who have – land, money, education, resources: the folks from 
