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.