6

As Henok led them through an opening at the back of the dump, Allan buried his nose in his forearm against the stench. Ray did the same. Henok kept walking forward. As they followed, Allan was certain he’d lose his breakfast any moment, but somehow it stayed down.

Henok turned and noticed the difficulty they were having. “I’m sorry. I forget how it is for those who never come here. We can turn back.”

Allan was happy to hear that, but Ray said, “No, keep going. We need to see this.”

Allan had seen—and smelled—enough.

“Are you sure?” Henok said.

“Yes,” Ray said. He set the little boy down. “I can’t carry you anymore. I’m afraid I’ll drop you.” They were standing before a massive heap of garbage about thirty feet high, and it was clear Henok intended them to climb it.

Allan released the little girl. The boy took her hand and led her away, but he did not leave the dump as Allan expected. Instead, he led her around the base of the hill several yards away, then they both began to climb.

“What’s he doing?” Ray asked.

“Come back,” Allan said. “Don’t go up there.” The children looked at them for a moment but continued to climb. “Where are they going?”

“To get food,” Henok said matter-of-factly. “It’s what they do every day.”

“Children that young?” Ray asked.

Henok didn’t answer. He took a few steps up the base of the hill, then stopped. “We must be very careful as we climb. It is extremely dangerous. Do your best to follow my handholds and footsteps.”

“It doesn’t look that steep to me,” Ray said. “If the children can do it . . .”

“That’s not the danger,” Henok said. “There are many needles buried in the trash. If you fall, and one pierces your skin, you could catch AIDS or TB or many other bad things. My eyes are trained to spot them. So do as I do and go only where I go. Once we’re over this hill, you should be all right.”

The men climbed single file. Allan had a thought and almost said it. How about if he stayed at the bottom of the hill until they got back? But he kept following Ray. As they neared the top, he kept hearing beeping sounds. Lots of them. When they reached the crest, he saw the source. Bulldozers spread throughout the dump were moving massive piles of trash. And garbage trucks of every size were dumping more piles here and there.

They looked across acres and acres of dark gray garbage, as far as the eye could see. The scene on the ground offered little contrast to the overcast sky. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people wandered through the rubble. Children, mothers with babies tied to their backs, the elderly, teens, and lepers, all holding big bags, poked and sifted through the garbage. Crowds were especially thick around the bulldozers and garbage trucks. Mingling among the throng were dogs and goats and so many birds.

All Ray and Allan could do was stand and stare. Both had lowered their arms and were no longer covering their noses. The smell was just as nauseating, but it seemed inappropriate to be so obvious, an insult to these poor souls who had to live and forage for their food here every day.

Henok motioned for them to follow. They carefully walked down the hill toward the same group of people the little boy and girl had joined, all of them digging through a fresh pile of trash left behind by a small blue garbage truck. Allan couldn’t take his eyes off the little girl. She had squatted down and was imitating everything the boy did.

“Is that her brother?”

“No,” Henok said. “She has no brothers or sisters. But he looks after her when she is near.”

Allan noticed something then. There were no fights. No pushing or shoving. No one grabbed anything out of anyone else’s hands. He looked around. It wasn’t just with this group. He didn’t see anyone acting aggressively anywhere else, either. Back in America, people regularly blamed big-city violence and crime on poverty. But look at the poverty here. It was so much more severe. A different league. Yet everyone seemed almost polite, even the children.

Ray said to Henok, “You seem to know that little girl’s story.”

Henok nodded his head. “I knew her mom. She grew up here in Korah. We were . . . friends. One day she was working all by herself, and a well-dressed man came to the dump and promised her work not far away. He said he’d pay good money. I wanted to stop her. I yelled for her, but she was too far away. The man took her to his house and raped her, then he brought her back and tossed her to the ground.”

“That’s terrible,” Allan said.

“Yes.” Henok sighed. “She got pregnant from that. After she gave birth, she got sick with TB. A few months later, she died, leaving her little daughter here by herself.”

“She’s an orphan?” Allan asked. “No one looks after her?”

“Yes,” Henok replied, “she is an orphan, but she has a grandmother. She lives in another part of the village. I knew where, so before I escaped this place, I brought the little girl to her. But her grandmother isn’t capable of feeding her, so she comes here to get her food every day like everyone else.”

Allan walked over to the girl. Henok and Ray followed. She saw him and looked up. He smiled, and she returned the smile. That was when he noticed she had two big dimples. Picking her up again, he said, “I wonder what your name is.”

“Ayana,” Henok said. “Her name is Ayana. It means ‘beautiful blossom.’”

“That is a lovely name, Ayana,” Allan said, gently touching the tip of her nose with his index finger. Instantly she smiled again. She spoke her first word, but Allan didn’t understand it.

“She said hello in Amharic. That’s the language she speaks, the language most of the people here speak.”

“Can you say it again?”

Henok repeated it. Allan tried to say the word, but judging by both Ayana’s and the little boy’s reaction, he muffed it badly. But it caused them both to laugh, so it was worth it.

Henok said something else that made Ayana laugh then began a brief conversation with her. “Ayana is very curious about white people. She mentioned her grandmother. I think she wants you to meet her.”

“Yes,” Ray said. “We’d love to. Can she take us there?”

Henok suggested Allan allow him to carry Ayana as they walked to her grandmother’s, so they could get there faster. Henok already knew the way. It wasn’t far, maybe a ten-minute walk. They came to a small hut, like so many others, made of mud and straw and not much else. But she did have a metal roof over her head. Some of the others nearby didn’t even have that.

They stepped inside a single room with a dirt floor, approximately eight-by-ten. The grandmother seemed startled to have company. Perhaps, Allan thought, even more so to see white men. She slowly got up and greeted the men with a typical Ethiopian kiss: once on the right cheek, then the left cheek, and one more kiss on the right. She said something to Henok in Amharic.

“She wants to make us coffee to honor us for visiting her home. It will be safe, the water is boiled.”

The old woman pointed for the men to have a seat on her bed. There were no chairs in the room. She began roasting some coffee beans over an open fire. Once the beans were roasted and put into a bowl, she put a pot of water on the fire. While the water boiled, she ground the coffee beans by hand, smashing a stick into a bowl. After she finished, she served the coffee to the men. Over the next several minutes, she and Henok talked. He occasionally paused to fill them in. They learned she was born in Korah, the daughter of lepers.

“Both her parents were lepers?” Ray asked.

Henok nodded. She told them that life had been very hard. She never knew from one day to the next if there would be enough food. Even today. People from the city treated you badly if you lived here, she said, as though you were no better than the garbage in the dump. Most of her family had already died. All she had left was Ayana, and she was terribly afraid of what would happen to Ayana after she died.

When they had finished their coffee, Henok looked at the time. “We had better get going.”

“Would you ask her if we can take pictures?” Ray said. “Of her and Ayana.”

Allan bent down and playfully swooped Ayana off her feet. “There are those precious dimples,” he said.

Henok asked her about the pictures, and she said that would be fine. It was too dark inside, so they stepped outside to take them. For most of the shots, Allan held Ayana. When they were done, he almost didn’t want to let her go. Ray asked if they could pray for the grandmother and the little girl, and she happily said yes.

After the prayer, they hugged and said good-bye. As they walked toward the car, Allan looked back at them standing there next to their little mud hut. This was all they had. All they would ever have. This was their present and their future. It felt so wrong.

Ayana looked right at him. She lifted her little hand and waved.