(Matt’s Note: To show respect to the impoverished communities we visited today, we did not bring cameras on our Poverty Day trip; however, we do have one photo with our guest speaker, Dona Francisca)

Hey Everybody, Today the group took a trip to the dump located outside Esteli. We first visited a community of homes right outside the dump, where many of the people we saw working in the dump live. These homes were small and clearly lived in by impoverished individuals. Nevertheless, we received many polite “Adios”s as we walked through the community. Eventually we came to a home closer to the center of the community in which Dona Francisca, the woman we had come to visit, lived. She was very kind and hugged and kissed every one of us, delighted that we had come to visit her. We sat outside her home and took the moment to ask her about her life and what it is like to live in such poverty and proximity to the dump. After we had visited her we went to the actual site of the dump, where we met Dona Francisca’s daughter, who we also called, Dona Francisca. She showed us her working conditions and enlightened us on what kind of income working in the dump delivers. We then aided her in collecting plastic bottles from the dump to give to recycling companies who pay one cordoba per pound of plastic bottles. It was hard work, and only gave us a taste of what its be like to work in the dump, let alone live in it. After this our time at the dump was over, and we went back to the hostel where we had plenty of time to reflect on what we had seen.

We reflected on what these people don’t have, and what they do. I personally thought a lot about what it’d be like to only know the world as the impoverished community you were born into, and spending the majority of your life rummaging through countless people’s trash in order to only make maybe 2 or three cordobas a day, less than a penny. The dump opened our eyes to the conditions many live in for their whole lives, and changed the way we look at wealth.     Thank you for reading! Your leader of the day, Liam