Narrative

"Who lives, who dies
Who tells your story"
 - Hamilton, by Lin Manuel-Miranda


There was an old wooden broom handle keeping the dumpster lid open. As I walked past, the stench of decay and rot wafted towards me unavoidably, cooking in the hot sun of mid-day. Sounds of rustling came from inside; someone was rooting around to find things of value to sell. Empty plastic or glass bottles, broken household items which could possibly be prepared, and of course if there was any food still considered edible, it is a bonus. There have been times when I've walked outside with a bag of trash to throw away and someone has been beside the dumpster, pulling out bags to root through. I place my bag gently on the sidewalk so that the person (on my street it's often an middle-aged woman) can know she hasn't gone through it yet.

"I'm sorry, it's just food bits," I sometimes apologize, thinking that old peels and rinds and coffee grounds won't be of any use, yet that she'll probably poke through the bag anyway, just to check.


In South America, the plumbing systems aren't strong enough to allow people to flush toilet paper. I think of the people going through the garbage who don't only have to wade through junk and old food but bags full of used toilet paper. Guilty, I think of the shampoo bottle I just tossed into my bathroom trash can. Is that something which someone could recycle for a bit of cash? Would a few cents be worth them opening the disgusting bag from my bathroom to retrieve the single bottle? I should remember to put something like that aside. The woman who roots through the dumpster near my house usually wears a smile. She is busy, oh so busy, rooting through the trash day in and day out and hauling around her finds on bent shoulders. Some nights, I've seen kids out playing on stacks of collected cardboard boxes while she sorts through her loot on the sidewalk.


How can it be that I am thankful she is going through the trash each day instead of prostituting herself, like so many women in other parts of Quito? How is it that the way she makes a living is not something I'd wish on anyone, yet seems the better alternative?


There are so many people working the streets. There are so many men at busy intersections who breath fire for a living, swigging a mouthful of gasoline from an old water bottle and projecting it onto the torch they tip towards their face, sending balls of fire into the air. Their skin is dark with soot. So much gasoline and smoke; how terrible it must be. Yet along with fire breathers and trash collectors, there are scores of acrobats and juggles, of troubadours and rappers, all waiting for the red traffic lights to let them perform in front of the waiting cars. There are a thousand people selling candy, gum, chips, pens, bracelets and more on buses, selling bags of fruit between stopped cars or washing windows. The city is a collective voice crying out it's wares, it's entertainment, it's sad stories, begging to be heard and acknowledged with just a handful of change. Thus I cannot judge the women who sell their bodies any more than I can the ones who hoist themselves inside dumpsters and wade through feces in order to find anything of use. It's all connected: a ring of poverty and lack of education ensnaring so many. It's overwhelming, yet ... I will chose to search for hope. To believe that if the woman going through the dumpsters makes enough each day that maybe she can keep her kids in school and give them a better future. To believe that if I keep encouraging the women in prostitution that they are smart and capable and valuable, that they will seek other work, anything, hard as it may be.

Sometimes I feel as though a great debt is over my life which I must repay. My debt is the incredible grace of having been born as I was; a free, educated woman from a privileged country. I've made do when funds were very tight, yet have never slept on the streets, have never begged, have never felt stripped of all other options. I feel the expanse of this debt not only in meaning that I should use my life well, but that I should use it to try and help other people. After all, if I were voiceless, I'd want someone to speak for me. If invisible, for someone to see me.

Truthfully, it is all too easy to tune out the cacophony of voices asking for money, too easy to see the fire breathers and trash collectors and not really see them at all. They have become part of my daily life. If I'm honest, I have to remind myself to notice, and to care. I cannot help everyone, but maybe, I can help some, such as those in prostitution, and of course the boys in Casa Gabriel. Maybe, they in turn can help change the narrative. If they acknowledge the beautiful debt of being given a second chance, then they can go pay it forward to someone else.


The face of the person in the dumpster I was walking past suddenly appeared. Her skin is like leather, creased and browned from many years in the sun. I smiled, and she smiled back, seemingly genuinely glad and unashamed of being surrounded by trash. She heaved a cardboard box onto the sidewalk. I thought of the children I'd seen playing on those stacks of cardboard many nights, their laughs and shrieks sounding like those of any other children, wild and joyful and free.