(larger sized picture - really large sized picture) We walked out towards where they were, and they watched (in as much curiosity as we, I'm sure) as we got closer. We were told not to take pictures, but a reporter who was with us just laughed, rattled off a response to the guard, and told us to go ahead.
Our students asked, with their hands over their faces from the stench, "Do these people really live here?" We told them to ask! We had a few Marathi speakers in the group, and the shock on their faces was evident when the ragpickers said they did live on the garbage dump and pointed at their tents over on the far side.
The reporter was shaking his head and explaining about the scam that was being run here. He said that this was actually an illegal dump - thus the request for no pictures - but because the city officials were being paid off everyone looked the other way.
I suppose that they saw the dump as the
only life they'd known, and tough to move on from...
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The money changing hands is supposed to be substantial, to the point of shaking down municipal garbage trucks for donations. Since this is closer than the real sites, however, the owners of the fleets save so much on fuel costs that it is worth the gate fee. Apparently, even the ragpickers had to
pay for the 'privilege' of working here. A certain percentage of each week's
take had to be kicked back to the dump bosses to ensure that they could
remain on site.
And, as we saw the younger generation get trained into this way of life, it was incredibly sobering for our students to picture themselves as being nothing less than incredibly blessed to have much more than this in their future... |
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