Guatemala - Basurero
As I'm lucky to have family in Guatemala, I do travel at least once a year to this lovely country, it's actually my favorite one out of 40 countries I've visited in my life.
I was always aware of the extreme poverty the country has to deal with. In some zones crime and violence are part of the daily business and my family and friends always made sure, that I'm not entering this dangerous areas. Nonetheless when I saw a documentary about the Basurero, I was wondering, why I haven't heard about this before and was deeply touched that thousands of Guatemalan residents have this garbage dump - called "Basurero", where the whole trash of Guatemala City gets dropped, as the only option to survive. They seek for food and materials they eventually can sell for a few Centavos. Many tragedies happened in there, this mountains of trash often result in avalanches where people and kids have been buried alive. I was motivated to try to help this people. After the second time I was going to this zone, with some food and clothes, I finally managed to figure out from where I can take some photographs, as the regular entrance is strictly denied to any Journalists. Here you can see some photographs, I've taken from the Cementerio General in Zone 3, Guatemala City, I went with a bunch of flowers to not attract any undesired attention.
With all my respect to this people I want to share this with you, as hardly any tourists will visit this place.
