For the inhabitants of the Tiguadare sector, Carirubana Municipality of Falcón state, the day begins before the sun rises to take advantage of straining as much sand as possible before the strong sun characteristic of the area takes over by mid morning.
lapatilla.com
Life for them is reduced to recycling the garbage that arrives at the largest landfill in Venezuela, which is located in this area and is not controlled by any security or government agency.
This is how a hundred families divided into about 50 shanties and 10 houses live by recycling glass, plastic, iron and steel, although their greatest desire is to find gold and silver jewelry that generates extra income.
For at least 8 years, children who grow up in the locality begin to imitate their parents in the selection of waste. Some have been “lucky” and have come across valuable pieces that their parents later sell to eat better for a few days and have a little economic respite.
According to data from the Municipal Institute of Urban Cleaning (Imaseo) this landfill was created 11 years ago, the largest in Venezuela, and aimed to recycle garbage from the three municipalities of the Paraguaná peninsula but never worked.
But Bertha Guzmán has another version. This 76-year-old fisherwoman, who is recognized in the community as the first woman to inhabit the place, assures that it was 50 years ago that this garbage dump was formed when Punto Fijo, the main city in the Peninsula, was just being born.
No Utilities
The chronicler of Carirubana, Guillermo de León Calles, does not have many records of the place, only that it is a town that has been populated with shanties. Although a large part of these families were moved to the entrance of Tiguadare, where the mayor’s office together with the Cardón IV company built 70 houses for these inhabitants.
The purpose was to end the clandestine garbage recycling, but this was not a solution, because the families in the place continue with the daily task of rummaging through the trash selecting objects to later sell them by the kilo, because it is the only way they have to survive.
These 70 houses have basic services, such as piped water and electric service, but the needs abound in the place. Recycling is barely enough to “half eat” and this depends on the number of children each family has, although most have more than three children.
This town has been served by foundations and Non-Governmental Organizations, among them, “Una Mano para Venezuela y el Mundo” (Umavem, A Hand for Venezuela and the World), which offer healthcare days, since numerous cases of scabies and malnutrition in children and adults have been recorded.
A Close Knit Community
Tiguadare is divided into two zones: the community that is at the entrance to the sector and where the 70 houses were built, and the other that can be seen as one drives down the road under construction that leads to the sanitary landfill and culminates at the shore of the beach.
It is precisely there that Bertha Guzmán’s family lives, composed of 11 children and more than 50 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They also sustain themselves with artisanal fishing and raising pigs and goats. Currently there are 10 shanties scattered among the mountains of garbage and recycled objects. Here the extreme poverty shows its most dramatic face.
Bertha, with her 76 years on top of her, no longer fishes or recycles garbage, but she affirms that she is happy to have chosen that place to make her home. She is satisfied with having raised her 11 children in the area where there were only dunes, brush and a beach. She remembers that she came to the place when her husband built her a beachfront shanty about 50 years ago.
They fed on fishing with two boats: one of hers and another of her husband. “We were happy in our shanty, but a wave did not knock them down and we lost everything. We only kept the clothes we were wearing. It was then that we decided to build more towards the dunes.” Bertha has a large house, with several rooms, but it has become very difficult for her to maintain it over the years, because her money is barely enough to feed half of her family.
When her children began taking partners, each one started building their “houses” adjacent to Bertha’s and they have kept together to help each other. “Here we are all family, this is our home,” she says happily.
Although they arrived in the area more than 50 years ago, they never installed electricity or piped water in the town, despite the fact that Cardón IV S.A. is located a few kilometers away, a transnational energy company formed by the Spanish company Repsol and the global Italian oil company Eni. This transnational corporation is the owner and operator of the Cardón IV block, in the Gulf of Venezuela.
Incorporated in 2006, its main activity is the production and sale of gas nationwide. In 2009, Cardón IV, S.A discovered the Perla natural gas field, located in the Cardón IV block, in the shallow waters in the Gulf of Venezuela, 50 kilometers off the coast to the west of the Paraguaná Peninsula, Venezuela.
With Carts and Donkeys
Bertha was one of the beneficiaries when the 70 houses that were built at the entrance of Tiguadare, but she gave it to one of her daughters, because in order to move she had to leave behind her animals and the house that her husband built for her with all the effort of years of work.
“How do I leave my animals and the house, if this is my home. A home that we have built with a lot of effort and work. If they (government) wanted to help us, they would bring water and electricity, build a road and we would be better off that way.”
Families go about their daily routine as long as there is natural light. At night the whole community is in the dark. The drinking water is loaded from the houses built at the entrance of Tiguadare, every two weeks when Hidrofalcón provides the service. To fill their tanks and steel drums, they load buckets into carts they have built with recycled wood and push them with a donkey that travels about five kilometers.
Meanwhile, the animals are supplied with brackish water that comes out of a broken pipe from the Cardón IV desalination plant that is near the shore of the beach. “We carry that water with the cart and the donkey from Cardón IV, because it is brackish water, but it is good enough for the animals. The police have forbidden us to get water from there, but how do we do it if there is no water coming here and we are not going to let the animals die of thirst?” said Bertha Guzmán.
A few years ago, the community organized and introduced a project in Cardón IV to allow them to connect a pipe to the desalination plant for animal husbandry, but they got no answers.
Recycle to Survive
Angélica Núñez is 26 years old, she is the granddaughter of Bertha Guzmán. From the age of 12 she started working as a recycler. Her day begins at 5:00 in the morning and keeps going until 9:00 am the days that her children are on vacation from school.
She is married and has two children ages two and four. For her, recycling is a job that is carried out from generation to generation, and with what she generates income for family expenses. “The most desired thing is to find a gold or silver garment that is sold for a little more. We are not thugs as people believe, we are workers, we recycle and raise pigs. I used to walk all that straight road to get to school and today I’m a high school graduate. I want to continue studying, but since I am a mother, now I walk to take my children to school every day,” she said.
Although it is a family community, they do not escape crime. People from other places have arrived at the place and it has been necessary to unite to get them out. “Here we all know each other and when someone strange arrives, we approach him to leave. We don’t want problems and we live healthy here,” stated Núñez.
There are also people who have made their shanties , further away from Bertha’s community. Some arrive with a family and others come to hide from the authorities. There are families from various areas of Falcón State, some even only come to recycle over the day and leave with what they get. “As long as they don’t invade our spaces, we’re fine. Ugly things happen in some shanty towns, but we have no competition there.”
Authorities Promised to Regulate Recycling
Eight months ago, during the balance of the first month oif the new government administration, the mayor of Carirubana, Abel Petit, together with the president of Imaseo, Miguel González, promised to recover the landfill and make recycling a profitable business for the municipality and the families who have dedicated themselves to this activity for years.
The intention is also for the security agencies to regain control of the place, because Tiguadare has become the preferred place for the dumping of bodies, robberies and even served as a refuge for criminals.
It was learned that the Cicpc carried out a procedure in the area and killed in an alleged confrontation Luis Angelo Yuguri Colina, only 18 years old, known as “el Pelón” and who was person of interest in the investigation into the murder of Donaldo Zamora, consummated last November 13th, in the same town. The teenager intended to impose a “pranato” (large scale gang, gang of gangs) in the place, while operating a dangerous gang.
This Thursday, August 18th, the President of Imaseo, Miguel González, responded to La Patilla in a press conference, that eight months have been insufficient to meet the goals over the landfill, that a census was carried out to determine the number of families that live in the place and three social approaches have been made to the locality.
Among the plans is to recover the sanitary landfill, standardize and provide supplies to those who work informally, create a security module at the entrance of the town, grant productive credits for families and create an environmental protection committee. “Our government (administration) is starting, we have only been in power for eight months, we don’t have a magic wand,” he said.