Scavenging the Heart of Mananga

Making love with the book entitled, The Good Women of China compiled and written by Xinran, a feminist broadcaster who reached the apex of her career amidst the tight domination of Mao Zedong, awakened some unknown region right here on the navel of my chest.

I got an appetite for The Scavenger Woman: a real story of a mother who wanted to have some glimpse of her rich politician son through camouflaging as a scavenger.

For some reasons that even I can't fathom, I always have a heart for scavengers that drastically led me under the Mananga Bridge, a thirty-minute ride from the city. Together with my three friends, I made a documentary out of that visit and fortunately, it won during the university's Green Screen: An Earth-friendly Video Documentary Film Festival.

According to Noy Nido, who farmed the right edge of the river, ilado kaniadto ang Mananga tungod sa misterhiyosong pagpakita ni Maria Cacao, kaniadto, kay karon ilado na kini tungod sa basura ug sa kabaho. (Mananga was known for the mysterious appearance of the legendary Maria Cacao. That was before. Now it is known for its rubbish and foul smell.)

We went back there, dragging the whole staff of our publication and some nursing friends who heeded our call, with a few bags of canned goods, used clothes and the likes. (Noy Nido and the rest of the gang's part of the prize).  We're trying to stir the sleeping Samaritan out from them. They gladly roused from the sick bed of noncompliance.

Levy Balgos dela Cruz, a multi-awarded playwright and scriptwriter, who was one of the judges of the film fest, said that "…Mananga (the documentary) shows lives striving to survive in the dumpsite, making a living out of junks amidst all the health hazards and among the stray dogs and disease- carrying pests; or trying to eke out a 'living' by making pork chorizos where yards and yards of pig intestines are washed in the river polluted by the toxic seepage from the dumpsite…"

Noy Nido, Teresito, Rosilo, Randy–the noisiest mute I ever encountered, and the rest of their families never expected that we would be back there. They were thrilled.

The dumpsite which is the home of diarrhea, malaria, dengue and doctor knows what else, has now become the spring of their lives. The irony of it.

Tess, Kim and their friends conducted some blood pressure tests and dressed the wounds of the children who let the dirty tongue of Mananga River licked their wounds. 

Tess said that those kids have some respiratory problems; their wounds which are mostly caused by some rusty nails will be infected further if necessary interventions are not done.

Our help is just short-lived but we just wanted to be a Xinran, appealing to everyone that there are lives away from the societal and political pages of the newspaper who are still breathing the air of poverty.

Don't worry. Suffocation is a foreign term for them.