Walking down a dusty, desert road, bizarre shapes appear in
the distance. You walk towards these distant objects as you look around your
current location; you notice other roads, all heading to the unidentified
shapes. Continuing down the road, you hear the sound of a large vehicle zooming
down one of the roads. You look to the vehicle, it’s a rubbish truck. It
continues down towards the distant location as you hear another truck go by,
and then you see another, and other, and other. You wonder that maybe the
location ahead is just a landfill.
As you approach the location, you begin to notice more
distinct shapes. Cubes and prisms of various shapes and sizes, they almost look
like buildings? Of course not, buildings aren’t made of rubbish. Moving forward
you notice the stench of old metal and rotting wood, certainly smells like a
dump. Against your better judgement, you move on.
Getting closer and you can see the buildings slightly more
clearly. The buildings look like they’re made out of discarded materials.
However, you notice something new, there seems to be a gap between the ground
where you are and the ground the city is on.
You continue onwards. The gap gets wider and wider. You
notice that the road you’re walking on ends at the gap, and at that point there
seems to be some kind of walkway. The buildings look even more distinct, even
from here. They’re houses? They must be, you can hear the sound of families
coming from them, and you can see lights emanating from the make shift windows.
You’ve heard of shanty towns or slums, but this is something entirely
different. It must be at least double the size of any shanty town, this must be
some kind of shanty city!
Some of the rubbish trucks have reached the end of their
roads and have started dumping all their contents into the gap, which at this
point is very wide. You can also see the contents of this large gap, it’s all
rubbish. It actually is a landfill. Why? You understand that unwanted material
must go somewhere, but why is there a city in the centre of it? Will you find
the answers in the city?
Heading to the giant river of garbage, you finally see that
the walkway at the end of the road, is a slightly rotten wooden bridge,
connecting the main land to the island the city rests on. The smell is horrific
and the sight is just awful, you wonder why anyone would want to live here? But
maybe they don’t have a choice. It could be possible that the people simply
cannot afford to live somewhere better. You think its best that you stop
jumping to conclusions, it may be a better idea to head into the city and find
out how these people live for yourself.
Upon landing on the island, you’re unsure if this even is a
natural island. Is the ground made of garbage with a layer of mud on top or is
it real turf? The local people don’t seem to mind. You look up to the closest
building, it’s made of rusted iron and plastic wrap, very unsanitary. You peer
through a bit of plastic that is in place of a window, you see an entire family
in there. There looks like there’s barely enough room for 2 people, let alone 7!
And yet, they don’t look miserable. They’re sitting around talking, eating
dinner, laughing. Even the coldness of the metal the building is made of cannot
detract from the warmth of this home.
Are all the houses like this? How many people live here? The
buildings stack and the paths are narrow, this city is like a labyrinth. Before
journeying into the maze, you take one final look of this section of the outer
city. You notice some children running around playing games, you see some
people climbing into the pit and clambering back out with more garbage to add
to their patchwork houses. You see a sign, “Welcome to Junkyard City”, how did
you miss that? At least the name is pretty self-explanatory.
You begin you adventure into the city. The walls are tight
and there are people everywhere, it somewhat reminds you of the slums in India,
except this is Nigeria. Even though this is a clearly poor area, built from the
left overs of others, the people here still seem to have a sense of culture. You
see a few vivid paintings on some of the walls and you occasionally see small
statues resembling people in the middle of the city streets.
You think you’re still heading in the right direction, that
layout of this city is all over the place. You find a well, there is a group of
people surrounding it. You wait to see what is going on, and moments later a
bucket emerges from the well. The people celebrate as if it were New Year’s
Day, what did they find? Water. Really? These people must be in a really bad
state if they celebrate after finding water. You continue to watch as people
pass the first bucket around and as a second bucket goes into the well. Water
is such a basic necessity, you wonder if the people here even have food. It
seems odd to you that the people here also seem to be so happy and contented,
it almost seems as if they’re in their own little world.
You finally ask a local, ‘What actually is this place?’
“To you, a mess; to the government, a blemish; to society, a
disgrace; to me, home. Things are thrown away every day, never to be used
again, just like the founders here. They were used and then thrown out by their
society. They decided to embrace everything that is discarded. They began
building this place, at first out of spite, but then they noticed that people
without homes would come in seek of shelter. The founders then continued to
build for the people and the things that society casts out. You wonder why the
people here are happy. It’s because we have each other. Many of us have very
little material wealth and to the greater government, we are worthless. But
here we are all equal. We care for each other here, just outside a society that
cares for no one. We use unwanted materials because it reflects how we were
unwanted, but it also shows how we can be brought back to accomplish different
things. We are not part of the society, but we are a community.”
You think you know understand what this place is to some
extent. You wonder if there’s even more to this great city. However,
understanding the city still doesn’t stop the smell.
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