Nicaragua Study Mission - Day 5

In Managua there is a village built on garbage. The dump is home to 6,000 men, women and children, spanning three generations, whose day-to-day existence depends on the waste they salvage. They pick through the refuse for food, clothing, shoes and recyclables like tin and plastic bottles. A few years ago houses were constructed for the dump's resident scavengers but bit by bit they sold off the building materials for a few cordobas (Nicaraguan currency).

This morning we met an American team of doctors and nurses who are spending the next 10 days administering medical attention to the dump dwellers. We ask if they know Krukira, the indigenous community we visited a few days earlier. They had not and since it is the Department of Health that decides where they go it is likely the team will not be directed there.

The end of day five of our mission finds us on the island of of Ometepe, far removed from the squalor of the dump. Ometepe in Spanish means two mountains for the volcanoes - one active - that lay like sleeping giants here.

We dine in an open-air restaraunt with a volcanic ash floor overlooking the lake that surrounds the island.

It's a gorgeous setting but my mind keeps going back to the dump.