Jon Goering

The sound of laughter in the stinking garbage dump in Chinandega is jarring, striking against the background soundtrack of rumbling trucks and shouting workers.  The innocence and naivety of the children of the dump is all at once the happiest and saddest aspect of life in this wasteland. Wasteland not as a descriptive name for a place devoid of value, but literally a land of waste. Indeed, for those salvaging life out of the dump, the land is filled with value -- plastic bottles, scrap metal, materials for housing and discarded food. It is transformed into a backyard, a playground, in young imaginative minds. Until the truth of what being born into a life on a landfill means begins to set in, and young minds turn to escape -- commonly stealing, cheap drugs and prostitution. But for a while, there's laugher.