Last week Levi and I went to a garbage dump for the district. We didn't go for the trash, we went for the people who live amidst it. The scene made my stomach turn. Babies with nothing but shirts on playing in the garbage, kids chasing each other inside the dump and all you can see are their eyes and teeth. Moms with TB, Dads who are so thin they look as if they would blow away, the lastest story of a husband and father who died a few months ago by a snake bite from the trash dump....My heart was heavy. Earlier this year, I would have looked on this scene as a total outsider...would have seen these people as poor, sad, and helpless....But a year has passed and with the time, my perspective has changed. As I listened to the people speak in Hindi and as we spoke to them, I realized that they make plenty of money working at this dump. They just think they are saving the money by living in the trash! They don't HAVE to live like this! They CHOOSE to live like this! It comes from a lack of education mainly. They have to be shown why living in trash is ultimately the worst decision they could make for their family.
How ironic it is to see these situations in real life and then think of life in the States. How many people live in a "hypothetical trash pit"? They don't HAVE to live there, they do have a choice....but the trash makes sense to them. Perhaps they are more comfortable, perhaps they feel safe amongst the garbage in their lives....or perhaps they just need someone to come in and show them what life is like outside of the pit.
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