slumming it

ok so as you may have noticed i do not have the energy to write in a remotely good way, deal with it yo. so i just came back, about 10 minutes ago, from my landfill/slum homestays. I spent one day at the landfill, we did a "tour" for about 4 hours, and worked with the scavengers for like an hour. In case you did not know these people existed, which i did not, this is what they do: they live next to the landfill and go out 4-6 times a day to go through the new garbage as it is dumped in the landfill to find recyclable materials to sell back. they live off of the money that they make from that, and they pretty much have to work all day to do so. we slept there that night and then we went out with our families for the 7am garbage dump to help scavenge. most of you know that i have a slight problem with smells, so i struggled through most of the time there, you would think that there is just a garbage smell, but there is in fact a whole range of subtly different smells that hit you at different times so you can never get used to it. we put on these rubber boots and cloth gloves and used these rake/pitchfork things and just waded in there. i honestly have no idea how they do it everyday. there were sooo many maggots just everywhere and you have to reach in and brush them off with your hands to see if their home is a valuable piece of garbage. i also had some pretty nice encounters with roaches, belize broke me in to that a little bit, but having a roach crawling on your neck is just not something you can really prepare for.
after spending just the one full day and one night at the landfill we went to the slums. they are these mini communities that cover pretty much all of the land next to the railroad throughout the city. we all expected them to be really intense and run down, but it turned out we were in one of the "rich" slums, and the one i was living in was actually a little nicer than my first homestay. the only thing was that the ceiling was really low, i couldn't stand up straight in any room. we were there for two nights and three days, and i dont really have much interesting to say about it honestly. my "meh" (mom) worked as a cook in the market so i spent a lot of my time just sitting there while she cooked. if you want to know more about slum issues or landfill issues i have a lot to say, but it would bore most and is just too much work at the moment. hope everyone is having fun where ever you are, i am leaving again today for a "retreat" the location and conditions of which our group leaders refuse to tell us. i'm praying for a week stay in the hotel sofitel, which is a five star hotel right down the street from us (literally right next to the slum community as well) but i think the chances of that may be slim. later dudes.