For six weeks I lived Manila, Philippines in a small room with four other women. We were in Smokey Mountain, a slum of the city that sat atop a landfill of two million metric tons of waste.
Our lodging was a rickety wood building, infested with cockroaches and constantly smelling of feces. The “bathroom” was a concrete room with two buckets of water - one for doing our business on, the other for rinsing.
One night while we were asleep, we were awakened by a scratching noise. We flipped on a light, and there was a flash of movement along one of our beds. “Was that a cat?” someone asked. Nope, we determined it had, in fact, been a massive rat. No one slept for the rest of the night.
We quickly realized that we were living in luxury compared to the majority of the 30,000 residents of Smokey Mountain. Some people lived on the streets. Others had created homes made of scraps of tin, cardboard, and wood. Nearly all had livelihoods of scavenging through the dump.
Our reason for staying in Smokey Mountain was to explore what healing and restoration was happening in the community, and learning how to partner in those efforts. It was an eye-opening, transformative experience. What really stuck with me was the fact that in six weeks, we’d be on an airplane headed back to the U.S., back to wealth and comfort and options for the future. Meanwhile, the people of Smokey Mountain would still be in their landfill city, assembling a life with scavenged scraps.
Our lodging was a rickety wood building, infested with cockroaches and constantly smelling of feces. The “bathroom” was a concrete room with two buckets of water - one for doing our business on, the other for rinsing.
One night while we were asleep, we were awakened by a scratching noise. We flipped on a light, and there was a flash of movement along one of our beds. “Was that a cat?” someone asked. Nope, we determined it had, in fact, been a massive rat. No one slept for the rest of the night.
We quickly realized that we were living in luxury compared to the majority of the 30,000 residents of Smokey Mountain. Some people lived on the streets. Others had created homes made of scraps of tin, cardboard, and wood. Nearly all had livelihoods of scavenging through the dump.
Our reason for staying in Smokey Mountain was to explore what healing and restoration was happening in the community, and learning how to partner in those efforts. It was an eye-opening, transformative experience. What really stuck with me was the fact that in six weeks, we’d be on an airplane headed back to the U.S., back to wealth and comfort and options for the future. Meanwhile, the people of Smokey Mountain would still be in their landfill city, assembling a life with scavenged scraps.
RSS Feed
