Osprey - 6-26-2013 at 06:40 PM
The Dump
Relleno Sanitario
Almost every little town has a dump. At one point in time we had two; some politics were at play I believe and they closed the one just on the edge of
town and opened a new one six miles down the paved road toward Cabo Pulmo. The change created a huge eyesore as people used to driving just a couple
of blocks didn’t like the new distance, threw their trash and construction debris alongside the road just on the edges of every paved and dirt path
into and away from the village.
They changed their trash habits and now found tambos grandes somewhere and put all their stuff in front of their homes for pickup. So the city had to
get more trucks, more men, more gas and adjust to the change. Eventually the roads and paths were cleaned up, the feral animals left the abandoned old
dump, the newer, bigger, better dump was fenced, had a caretaker if you want to call him that.
Nobody seems to know why but for a while, a year maybe, they had a gate, chain, lock and key and closed the place at dark. Flaco put the key in the
crotch of big cardon cactus near the gate and pretty soon it didn’t really matter. I think what changed everything was the flies because as kitchen
trash built up, the place became less inviting for those coming to take, not leave things.
I never saw any kind of serviceable vehicle near Flaco’s cardboard shacks so if and when he needed water, provisions, he must have walked or
hitchhiked the six miles to and from El Rey, the first, nearest little tienda he would come to in the village. Water is heavy and of all his needs
must have caused him the most concern – he must have conned a few sturdy types to let him ride in the back of pickups back to the dump with a
garrafone or two of fresh water.
His lifestyle planted upon him the unmistakable odor of sweat and carrion. My dogs would begin to whine and shiver and growl long before he would
appear near my place. Carrion is not a single thing. I believe the smell is so toxic and noxious because it is many living cells going to waste above
ground. Rather Flaco and his smell than the dump unattended because I have yet to see there what other dumps around the municipio have allowed to
enter, dine and die. The one on the road to El Charo at times has been home to bands of burros, pigs, packs of dogs, feral cats of every size and
color, great flocks of vultures, cara cara and ravens. Most of them died from drinking antifreeze and cleaning solutions.
A whole lot of this is sheer conjecture because I don’t go to the dump at night and on the few daytime trips I’ve made, the smell, the filth, the
flies all combine to make me dump and run. I do remember the cattle guard looks effective and that’s part of the reason I’ve seen few, if any, (live)
animals there. Flaco might have a BB gun, a slingshot, lights and noisemakers there for all I know.
The trash man probably prefers keeping live critters out to having, even for short periods, dead animals of all kinds. If horses, cows, goats, dogs
and cats die in the village somebody usually finds a way to get it to the dump. All the fish carcasses – marlin, sailfish, dorado, tuna, etc. end up
in some lonely arroyo or at the dump since the fishermen are forbidden to clean the fish near the shore. That makes little sense because when the
discarded parts used to be thrown in the water at the shore it went back to the food chain with amazing benefits and no visible downside; in the
afternoon it was hardly visible and by dark all the tiny shoreline fish and crustaceans had vanished the stuff in the best way, nature’s way.
The old dump was finally and effectively closed. Just before it closed I was there to see scores of feral dogs and cats fighting over territory,
scraps. On my last visit there I picked up a box of grade school work books, took them home – just curious about how our local muchachas were doing in
history, math, social studies. From the final grade marks I can tell you many will be prepared to fish and work on the garbage truck.
After the closure I drove up Cerro Isabel, above the landfill to pick some wild oregano. The view from just above the old dump was spectacular –
mountains, valley below, village, strand, and a broad, clean bay as picturesque as any in the tropics.
If this little vignette tells you a village of 2,000 Mexicans and about 200 gringos enjoys a place to put things they have used, things now unpleasant
or dangerous to them, you got my point. Not much evocative here unless you have an undying and ineluctable need to change the way it all works.
Said another way: “It is what it is”.
If some of you just can’t stand it, kill and neuter lots of animals, petition someone, somewhere to change the current zoning laws, fire the teachers
and hire new ones. Me, I can help a little. A smidgen of Vicks on my upper lip, buy a big orange drink and offer an occasional return trip to the new
dump in the front seat of my pickup for Flaco while I listen to him b-tch and moan about the P-nche dump truck drivers who won’t follow his
directions.