Entering the heart of darkness

Entering and walking into the garbage heap was one of my most intense and hardest moments during fieldwork. Going into the area I was surrounded by smoke from burning garbage, but as i was walking down the hill, into the garbage area, the smoke cleared, and this is what appeared:

As I descended down into the garbage heap, the intense smell of rotten, decaying matter was the first that hit me. Standing and walking in garbage, slipping on old diapers, rotting food, refuse of body decay and all the types of human garbage that you can imagine, and then some, made me sick to my bone.

Concentrating on not throwing up, Reimundo guided me through a sea of garbage, smoke from burning garbage and the trucks that sometimes came in high speed, and did not seem to care much if they should run over someone. Sometimes we would walk into small dumps, or mini-valleys, and there the smell would be at its most intense. But then we would walk up a small hill of garbage, and the wind would bring some fresh air, making it all better. And also to take a new breath before again descending into the rotten air.

After a while, we reached the rest of Reimunds family, his sons and their wife's, and their mother. Here I was struck by the way they was working thougether as a an extended family, cooperating, while they systematically worked through the a heap of garbage.

In the picture, with their face down in the garbage is his oldest sons wife, oldest son, younger son, and his own wife.
Another part of the life at the garbage heap was the vultures and flies. For them, the garbage was a paradise.