Day 17

Today as we were on the bus to our first destination, Guasmo, there were huge piles of garbage in the middle of the road. It turned out the garbage trucks don't pass through the communities either side of the road and so they have no option but to bring it out and dump in on the road for collection. We guess that it is collected about once a week and with some many people to piles get huge. I only managed to get a picture of a small pile.
It was there that the family with 7 children lived. The women who had come to me on my first day crying that there mother had died and she needed our help; it turned out to be true. The four bedroom house sleeps 15 people, 10 children under 13. When we arrived Amelia, their grandmother was in bed, she got up to talk to us but had a drip in her arm, she had been coughing blood the night before.
Their father was also there. He sometimes works in Esmareldas in the north of the country but was there trying to organise their documents. He is forty something years old and doesn't have any papers. Nor do his children. He told us his Dad died when he was young and he's never tried to get them. Here in Ecuador, there is an identification card, the cedula that is obligatory to have once you turn 18. Unbeleiveable!
The next house had chickens running around inside and even they looked sad.
Next we went to Las Malvines. I felt less comfortable here than the other places, it seemed more closed off and less friendly. The first house we visited was of a family who's mother died two months ago leaving 5 children, one a now 6 month old baby. The father was at work but it seemed they were being looked after. Uri asked them if he drink, takes drugs or beats them. These questions, which i would never dare to ask in such an open situation were answered in what seemed an honest manner. He drinks sometimes when he partys and he beats them when they are naughty.
We visited multiple houses in this area. They all seemed like they were each doing their best to make the best life they could. One family however, was very distant. They didn't invite us in, they were rough and rude, none of them worked and they seemed to have a lot of things. We speculate that they are thieves and we are very worried for the young boy living their with these four adults. The grandmother was out the front of the house skinning and cutting up chicken. It made me feel sick to see the flies buzzing around on it as she talked to us.
It was a long day and I got sun burnt but we managed to do a lot of visits.