Managua is a bustling city. On one street you may find paved roads, street lights, stores, and international hotel chains. One block in any other direction is an entirely different story. Nicaragua's socioeconomic status can hardly be described in gradations but rather in polar opposites. There appears to be very little middle class as we might describe it in the states. Instead, the upper class is composed of foreign investors and other immigrants to the country and the Nicaraguan elite who have family legacies of impressive and excessive wealth. On the other side of the spectrum are people who live in cardboard and scrap metal homes, some only surviving on $1 a day.

In a corner of the city is the Managua City dump. Donned the name 'La Chureca' from the Spanish verb 'to scavenge,' La Chureca is home to some 1,000 families. Each day (except Sunday) about 200 trash trucks pour into the dump. Piles upon piles of trash surround these people. Men, women, and children have been born here, raise families here, and will die here. It is their home.

Poverty is a simple word to describe this place. Imagine their situation for one moment: malnourished and naked children run through streets of dirt and trash, while their fathers are off separating and sifting through the trash in search of recyclables (plastics and especially scrap metal) to be sold, and mothers care for and make homes for their family out of the rubble that they can find. In order to make money, people can take the recyclables to be sold outside of the dump. The men are the first to jump on the back of the truck on its drive in, to call dibs on the trash as women climb into the cab of the truck on the way out to prostitute themselves off and make a buck. This is a hellish place to make one's home. Literarly, fires can be found every few yards as the Nicaraguan heat causes the trash to spontaneously combust.

Could you live here? Could you even imagine human beings living amongst the disgusting trash, animal carcassas, and voltures? Would mankind ever deserve such torture?

One could visit La Chureca again and again, but the sight would still always hit hard. The shock and disgust may subside, however, the pain remains.

Despite it all there is some hope.

Within La Chureca, there are 2 schools, a few feeding programs, and a clinic. In fact, the clinic is in need of help right now to get through the year running at full capacity. They need $4,000 a month and could use all the help they can get. See this short video on the Manna Project website for more information.

Each of these three facilities serve the community of La Chureca through education, nourishment, and health...all crucial aspects of surviving the difficult reality in which these people live.

For the coming month, I hope to return to La Chureca each week to help with an English class and aid in Child Sponsorship which includes keeping in touch with families of malnourished children who have entered a program to get milk, oatmeal, and vitamens to bring them back to a more nourished state.

Written by Cassandra Maximous - Summer volunteer (June session)