P entered La Chureca

This Thursday, MJ followed the rubbish' way from the bin to La Chureca on board a rubbish lorry. After having left the little one at his pre-school, I followed, observing the observer. They work quite efficient, I must say. Just to follow the white lorry speeding through Managua, was hard enough. And they ran with rubbish as well!



One person at the back of the lorry, two on the street, collecting the bins, sacks or just rubbish piled outside the houses. The two on the street throws to the one on the lorry, who sorts valuables to the plastic bags and the rest into the stomach of the lorry.



When the lorry was full, it had to be emptied. I followed it in our, rather too old and too crappy Mitsubishi Space Wagon, into La Chureca. Since the day was very windy, the burning plastic on both sides of the road entering La Chureca created a rather scary tunnel the last hundred metres before the entrance. The car's tires are not in good shape, but then again, it seemed quite suitable for a dump. So, in I went, hoping not having to change tires in the fumes - where people live. It was, eh, apocalyptical (like Mad Max, but more smoke and dust).



I couldn't follow the lorry all the way to where it got emptied (tires!), instead I stopped and talked to people. Well, when I could open the window a little bit in between the smoke and dust attacks, I talked to people. One man I spoke to, stood there, directing lorries. We said hello and such, and then he took out his sandwich and started to eat. I had to close the window. It was either that, or coughing to death. He ate. After that i kept my window and mouth shut. Scary place! Impressive inhabitants!



I guess teaching and writing blah blah blah isn't that hard, after all.

Chureca and Managua

Yesterday night we visited our dear friend Josué from Matagalpa. Since the last time we met, Josué got married and bought a small house in Managua. From his house's yard, the view of La Chureca, the garbage continuously burning, shaken by the intense winds of January. Of course La Chureca is more than Acahualinca and its inhabitants. It is about Managua, the lake, its water, its air. It is about Nicaragua.

Juntos contigo! Together with you

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure to meet Juntos Contigo, a Nicaraguan-Dutch NGO based in La Chureca since more than six years ago. Juntos Contigo has a focus on youth education and sports as a means to support community development. www.juntoscontigo.com


This scorpion embodies how some local NGOs operating within La Chureca, as Juntos Contigo, have reviewed their role during this transition period, as a result of the Acahualinca Project. Juntos contigo is now implementing some joint activities within the framework of the Acahualinca Project as the one I attended today. The objective was to encourage internal communication channels and self confidence through the development of handcraft abilities with recycled materials.


When Rubén explained for me that Juntos Contigo trains the kids in computing, I did not get the how, until he showed me this! I could have never imagined something like this in the middle of La Chureca.


Rubén asked Tere to come with us for a walk around the Chureca community. Tere has lived 19 of her 22 years at La Chureca. Even if the afternoon was chilly, the wind made the air almost unbreathable. Together with this, the mountains of garbage removed by the construction works are just getting this situation even worse. However, during this short work in the calmed afternoon I discovered a peaceful and more or less harmonic society that gets ready for the hard work of the following day. Now it is almost dinner time. This lady lives in the near neighbourhood of Acahualinca and comes daily to sell homemade food to La Chureca


To do some shopping at Pulpería La Económica is also another option.


The municipality has now also presence in the community. After years of laissez faire now the municipality and the sandinist government is entering to La Chureca through the Acahualinca Project. There are frequent visits of municipal officers to the community and the NGOs as Juntos Contigo that perform as hinge or gatekeepers.


The municipality has also established direct connection with the "twelve community leaders". One of them is Oscar, who sells delicious homemade cajetas (godies) in the neighbourhood.


Playing football. This is one of the activities that Juntos contigo supports in the community.


Cleaning clothes after a hard day of work at La Chureca. There is water supply in most households by the intervention of one of the local NGOs, Funcofundes, the same one that runs the health centre. To what extent has the intervention of these NGOs supported the isolation of this community within the garbage dump instead of promoting a way out? This is one of the main discussions between the NGOs operating at La Chureca and Acahualinca. Having said that, and as Rubén replied to me: "we give credibility to the ones operating from the outside". These local NGOs also embody a window to the world, by means of which people from the outside, as me, has a safe entry, and can have a contact with the community.

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Trying to avoid that children come with their parents to work, this kinder garden supports the community taking care of the small ones free of charge. The poster says "God Bless you. The registration time for the kindergarden is open



But when you almost forget that you are in La Chureca, then you notice again the streets flood of rubbish, the young boys sniffing glue, the little boy dirty in black, and then you just want to disappear. I was impressed by the way Rubén coped with all these situations, calling by their name to all the characters we met during this tour, giving friendly advises to some of them, cheering up some others. Six years working in La Chureca... Rubén has seen how kids have become adults, how new born babies have already started working.

When I look at this people, the two years left to end La Chureca seem like an eternity.

The machines in La Chureca

It is hard to believe that this beautiful landscape is the scenario for La Chureca's drama.


Or that in front of the Xolotlán's lake, its islands and volcanoes...


...you find out this mountain of garbage. Tragsa, a Spanish public company specialised in construction and engineering, has already started the works to seal the dump at the back of La Chureca. While the Churequeros still select and recycle the garbage that is thrown everyday at La Chureca, the machines now also share a space in this piece of hell, this outside world.


Tragsa CO: This is what we can do best: to construct.


Taking decisions about the works. It is hard to spend the whole working day at La Chureca. Unlike other construction works, here both the social drama of a inhabited garbage dump and the air pollution make work more stressful and exhausting than usual. This partnership between AECID (Spanish Aid Organisation) and Tragsa becomes more and more common in different international contexts. This is a new time for AECID organising aid and cooperation. But how is the encounter of the techno-scientific discourse of architects or engineers with the social scientists involved in this project? "Yes, we will improve housing and the environment, but people will be the same". Argue some of them. For a second, they envied the 'simplicity' of constructing and building.

Second visit to La Chureca

Tomorrow I will visit La Chureca again. This time with the guidance and company of Tragsa's project manager, the company in charge of the engineering works at the garbage dump. Looking forward to it! In the mid time just a few photos shot in the headquarters of the different organisations involved in the project.


Newspaper Hoy's editors office. At the back some of the photos taken by its photographs.


The office's pet of the Newspaper Hoy: Eloy (El Hoy, you get it?) in the meeting room.


Anne Pérez, La Prensa, is the journalist in Nicaragua who best knows La Chureca. I was shocked by the youth of the journalists at the editorial office


In Tragsa, so far, papers, papers and more papers are the project's outcome. I lost the count of how many technical reports have already been produced; of course, with their respective terms of reference, reports, monitoring indicators bla bla bla.


And as engineers ... also maps



La Chureca's Project Office. The office is a new born unit with a new branded office. And often 'new' means unpersonalized in contrast with most organisations hosted in the old nicaraguan residential houses.


Like Dos Generaciones. Dos Generaciones represents the type of local Nicaraguan NGOs working hard for years in the fields, grabbing funding from a multitude of donors. Old, colourful, personal.

Escuela La Esperanza in La Chureca

Quizá una de las cosas que más me impresionó de mi primer día en La Chureca fue descubrir cómo en el corazón del basurero late la vida de un barrio y de sus gentes, con sus pulperías, su centro de salud y su escuela. La Escuela La Esperanza de La Chureca celebró el lunes la fiesta de navidad con todos sus alumnos. Aquí van algunas fotos de mi primera visita a La Chureca y a la Escuela La Esperanza.

Perhaps one of the most impressive things in my first day in La Chureca was discovering how in the garbage dump's heart life beats : a neighbourhood's life and its people, its pulperías (shops), its health centre, its school. Last Monday the Esperanza (Hope) School in La Chureca hosted the annual Christmas Festival for its students. Next some photos of my first visit to La Chureca and La Esperanza School.

Like any other neighbourhood, or 'condo', there is an entrance and a gate-keeper.





People live in houses they made with the abandoned materials, found in La Chureca


Wherever human being is, there is some kind of economic activity. As cattle.


Or the main economic activity, recycling. It was also impressive to see the economic specialization in the near neighborhood of Acahualinca where piles and piles of plastic bottles, bags, glass, where stored, ready to be sold to the intermediators.


There are streets


And of course, there are 'pulperías' (small shops), like the one run by Ramona López. Ramona is also one of the community leaders. In the picture Ramona is interviewed by the journalist Karla Alonso.



Photographers have turned out to be one more of the frequenty visitors to the neighbourhood. It is impressive to google about La Chureca and discover how much coverage has gained by international photographers. La Chureca has become a compulsory stop for many free-lance reporters travelling to Nicaragua for any reason, as Karla Alonso, journalist of Diario Hoy explained. In the picture, Guillermo, photographer of Diario Hoy.


And of course, there is a school, La Esperanza School run by a christian NGO since 2000. The kids attending this school suffer any kind of abuses and lack a proper diet. By attending school they are kept away from work, during part of the day. Next September this school will no longer be there when La Chureca is shut down.




Meeting to discuss the activities with the kids for today


It is Christmas. Time for charity. These are some of the presents donated for the kids by international and Nicaraguan NGOs. It is also Melissa's office. Melissa has been working for the Chureca School during the last four years. She spends part of her time at La Chureca, part in trips to Churches in the US to raise funding, and part reporting achievements and 'advertising' La Chureca through Facebook or youtube.


Non participant observation? As a 'chelita' it is difficult to pass unnoticed


The kids, the clown, the show


But as the Churequenos say, 'AECID (Spanish Cooperation) is going to end La Chureca'. And La Chureca, with its people, its streets, its houses, its school, its health centre, its pulperías is going to disappear they way we know it: it is going to be moved. How will the new Chureca look like? How much of the old Chureca will be left? The machines are ready to shut down the garbage dump, and the Spanish Cooperation has already placed the signs. The project has being started.