Another Face in the Crowd

As FFP’s Radio On-Air Fundraiser, Paul Jacobs is never at a loss for words. A moving encounter on a recent trip to Guatemala however left him speechless. He had no words seeing women, children and entire families digging through mounds of trash in the stifling heat…trying to find anything to survive.  That is where Paul met a certain woman, a tiny old woman who seemed to be just another face in the crowd.

She lays across some flattened cardboard boxes, completely outstretched and looking close to death.  This old woman is surrounded by children, some barely old enough to walk.  Her skin resembles old weather-beaten leather left out in the hot sun.  At a glance I quickly turn away from the sight of her wrinkled hands, fingernails almost black from digging through trash all day.

Then this woman (reaching no taller than 4-feet) introduces herself, “me llamo Juana Bertha Mateo.”

Juana is a resident of “El Remolino” in Teculutan, Guatemala.  This small “burb” is on the outskirts of Zacapa, a major city in eastern Guatemala.  Usually the weather is milder in Guatemala, but here the sun is intense and I’ve been sweating profusely since landing at Cuartel General (the military landing strip used for small commercial flights).

“We are at 800 feet elevation and it’s not as mountainous and cool as Guatemala City,” says Victor Morales, Food For the Poor’s Project Manager for Guatemala, “… so life is exceptionally more difficult with the weather being such a major factor.”

But as I get up the courage to turn my attention back to Juana, and with as much respect as I can muster, I then discover that her weather-beaten appearance comes with a terrible odor.  But of course, she lives on the dump.

“She lives on the garbage dump!?”

I thought to myself, silently wondering what it would be like back home to see families in shanty dwellings perched at the base of the North Broward County landfill.  There would be a state-wide outrage to have families surviving on what others have thrown away.  The mothers would be arrested if we ever found out that they served their children discarded food found underneath mounds of trash.  IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!

But unfortunately, Juana told us, “I always remember working here in this garbage dump.”

She’s now 77 years old and after decades of working in this filthy place, Juana has become just another face in the crowd.