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| Beauty Is in the Eye |
| By Leigh Ann Henion |
| Orion Magazine, July/August 2006 |
“Can you believe this is here?” Gary asks, heavy sadness in his eyes. By trade, he is a biologist, but I know he is not referring to an out-of-place species. He is referring to the people. They are all around us, mining the garbage of Quito, Ecuador.
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I lean against the van window. A group of men is chasing us, hands groping for handles. They bang the metal doors with their open palms. It sounds like thunder. The back doors swing open. Two teenage boys jump through the opening and crawl over the seat cushions. They are covered in mud and look as stunned as we do. One of them curses and mutters in Spanish, “There’s just people in here.” They are disappointed to find that we have nothing to add to this landfill, nothing they could later subtract.
Mothers with babies strapped onto their backs bend to rummage, their babies lurching forward as if they might tumble into the muck. Stray dogs weave among them, searching.
The putrid smell of the landfill wafts through the back doors. Just as I am about to ask Gary to start the van so we can leave, a little boy catches my eyes. Adults swarm around him, hands reaching into mud, feet finding nooks to help them climb the mountains of refuse. He has begun to run through the muck, across the wide valley below the mounds of trash. In his hand he holds a blue plastic bag. It streams behind him like a kit. He is laughing.
A man walks up behind a beautiful woman with a long black braid. He cups her hand in his before leaning over to give her a kiss. Behind them, beyond the garbage, antiquated bulldozers, and circling vultures, makeshift shacks declare that this landfill is a home. Behind those thin walls of wood and cardboard and sheet metal, the beautiful woman braided her hair this morning to hold it safe, away from her work. |
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