Sisters visiting landfills in Honiara, Oceania
Off we go… with stories from Sister Anna Maria Gervasoni, missionary of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. Destination Solomon Islands, in Pacific Ocean
by sister Anna Maria Gervasoni
It really is true that you never stop learning about a people and their lives. I had always heard about the Honiara dump and the people who live there but, partly out of fear, partly because there was no one to accompany us, we never had a chance to go there.
Well, the opportunity came. Our Salesian confreres took up the invitation of the pastor of the area where the dump is located. They told us that immediately the people welcomed them with joy, because never before had anyone gone to them, either to visit or to bring a word of comfort and encouragement.
Landfill life
It turned out that the inhabitants of the dump are not particularly poor or miserable, but simply immigrated to Honiara from other islands in the Solomons and, having found no home or land on which to build a house, they “placed themselves” in the only available, uncontested, and non-overpopulated place.
They have traditional houses (made of palm leaves) and some even made of wood, called “permanent” houses because they last longer than traditional houses.
Not all families live off the “products” of the dump. Most of the men have jobs in the city, and the women make do with small gardens carved out of spaces among the garbage. They raise pigs with the food they find among the garbage-and they have very fat pigs!
The children are many, of all ages; very few go to school and spend their days playing and exploring the garbage.
They also love to dive into the waters of a stream that runs through the area and which obviously receives the sewage from the garbage but, like all children in the world, they don’t mind it. Actually, neither do their mothers, because they wash their clothes and dishes in the same stream! For drinking and cooking they use rainwater, retrieved in various containers from the roof sheets.
In spite of everything, these children are beautiful and healthy; I have seen no traces of skin diseases or anything else and they are simply happy.
They welcomed us
When the Salesians first started attending the dump, they celebrated Holy Mass outdoors. Right away, however, the people built a nice tin roof with a wooden plank floor. Around Christmas, they were able to equip the church with benches and always used clean and well-made altar cloths. For Christmas, they also decorated the chapel and, to thank the fathers, gave them a piglet.
When we also went, we were warmly welcomed and the children immediately accompanied us to their play places.
The women told us about their daily life: they said that when it is hot (practically every day), the smell of garbage is so strong that they feel sick and clouds of flies settle everywhere, so much so that they have to keep everything absolutely covered, especially food, so as not to risk disease.
Then when it rains it is worse, because the rain carries sewage around their houses, forcing them to walk in it!
Everyone thanked us for visiting, for being there. What incredibly shines through is the joy, the serenity of a simple life, even if the place does not make it simple.
Now that we have begun to know this new reality, we can no longer ignore it. Let’s see what we can come up with, with the help of our school’s alumnae, who always ask to help us in our “endeavors”.
(February 2019)
Source and Image
- Sister Anna Maria Gervasoni