December 24, 2007 at 00:20:05

Where does the Lone Ranger take his garbage? Survivor Puerto Vallarta, Episode 9

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By Jane Stillwater (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Jane Stillwater - Writer

December 18: Now I only have two days left in Puerto Vallarta. Enough with the tourist stuff. I want to do something meaningful during these final days. "Why don't you go out and visit the city dump?" suggested my ex-pat friend Sarah. "There are people living out there who survive by picking through the trash and they live in houses that they've made out of objects they've found in the dump. And the dump itself is the size of a small mountain that's surrounded by a moat of black toxic sludge. It's an interesting place and is definitely a side of Puerto Vallarta that not many tourists get to see." Great idea! I'm on it! Er, where IS the dump? And how do I get there? "Try the bus?"

I Map-Quested "Puerto Vallarta city dump". No luck. But Google came up with an organization called "Children of the Dump" with a Washington DC phone number and in a flash the guy in DC connected me with Bishop Saul who runs the program. "Can I go out there today?" I asked the bishop's coordinator, an American named Art.

"Sure." Just like that, it was all arranged. "Meet me at 3 pm in front of the Wal-Mart and I'll drive you out." Great.

Remember that old joke from when we were kids? "Where does the Lone Ranger take his garbage?"

"To the dump to the dump to the dump dump dump."

The bus service in Vallarta is amazing. A bus comes along every five minutes and only costs five pesos. Fifty cents. We were at the Wal-Mart in no time. And I talked my friend Sarah into coming along too. Good. She takes amazing photographs. She can document the trip.

"My wife is Mexican," said Art, a tall gray-haired former resident of Los Angeles. "One day we went out to the dump and saw all these children working there, sorting through garbage. So my wife started yelling at their mothers in Spanish. 'Why aren't your children in school! Mothers should be sending their children to school, not making them work in a dump!' But the mothers yelled back, 'We have no clothes for the children, no showers, no food. How can we possibly send them to school like that? Dirty and hungry? We can't!'"

So Art and his wife and Bishop Saul started a feeding program in 1998, run mostly by volunteers out of the bishop's church. And now, less than ten years later, "Children of the Dump" http://www.childrenofthedumpvallarta.org/
offers showers, breakfasts, pre-school childcare and an after-school program for the older kids in a new air-conditioned building that actually has computers.

"Presently we have an after-school facility that serves 81 children and are looking for funds to build another one." They also operate nine daycare centers. "UNICEF had money earmarked for daycare and it trickled down to us. Each center has 25 kids. 85% of the mothers we serve are single parents. We charge them $15-50 per month and the program enables them to go look for work."

"Children of the Dump" has three major programs -- food, after-school care and daycare, all designed to give children who used to have to go to work at an early age other alternatives and an education. "But in 2000, the city built a wall around the dump and kicked out all the families who lived there."

"Did they have any place else to go?"

"No."

Then we went to one of the pre-school daycare centers. It was great! I'd have sent any of my kids here. Heck, don't I wish! When my daughter Ashley was young I left her with the only babysitter I could afford and somebody later told me that baby Ashley had been happily spending her days in a crack house.

"The Navy League helps us with volunteers," continued Art, "and various restaurants in town donate food. Vallarta Adventures has been donating food and supplies for ten years. On any given day, we impact the lives of approximately 2,300 kids all told." And their work DOES make an impact.

"Education is our emphasis. You can keep offering food to children for years and years and years but eight generations later, they'll still be needing food. But education is forever. There is tremendous pressure on the parents of this community to take their children out of school and put them to work at an early age. We really have to fight to keep the kids in school." In Afghanistan, the parents will do everything they can to help their kids get an education. But apparently it's not like that here.

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Stillwater is a freelance writer who hates injustice and corruption in any form but especially injustice and corruption paid for by American taxpayers. She has recently published a book entitled, "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips For Touring (more...)

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