This woman (left) tries on a pair of shoes she found at the dump. She is assisted by a fellow visitor, who also found items of clothing among the waste.

Paul H. Williams, Gleaner Writer

FROM THE northern hills overlooking the city of Kingston the view is panoramic, breathtaking. Kingston sizzles, and the sea in the distance is mesmerising. On a clear day you can see forever. The dream then is to live in a mansion on those hills.

Yet, that dream might as well fester as a sore for some of the residents of Riverton City and its environs. For years, the dump atop the hill is a source of income and food for them.

Theirs is an existence surrounded by garbage, much of which comes from the hills overlooking that city, which I visited on Thursday, March 26.

I am jolted by the foul air that quickly surrounds me as I enter the city of Riverton. Shacks line the dusty road. Scrap metal heaps bid me welcome, while stone-faced youths stand and stare.

As I advance towards the dump the air becomes more stifling. More metal heaps, more shacks. A small crane blocks the road as it puts a heap of rusty metal into the back of a truck.

Stories to tell

Just before I reach the dump, I see a group of people sitting at the side of a board shop. They wave to me as I approach them. After a brief greeting and introduction they surround me, for they want to talk, to tell stories of spending their days making a living from the dump across the bridge. I sit on a log and rest my back against the shop.

I am sandwiched by two young men, another takes centre stage before us. Women, some very big, form an enclosure around us, talking about the benefits they derive from their 'strange' lifestyle. Barefooted children look on.

Healthy-looking mongrel dogs stroll by. Cattle saunter up a lane. Pigs and piglets stroll through, as the horns of garbage trucks honk. Maxine is wroth; she's cussing because she has issues with the National Solid Waste Management Authority. She says the agency is preventing her from 'eating a food'.

The delicious scent of curried chicken being prepared in the cook shop rises above the obnoxious odour of stale garbage. After two hours of listening to their plights and joys, the main speaker takes me to a garbage truck. Into the front I jump. My guide comes in too, and sits beside me talking, talking, talking. I am not listening.

Omnivorous cattle

The truck crosses the bridge, and up into the dump we go. I am looking, looking, looking at the vastness of the land. The truck rocks as it drives over compressed refuse. Omnivorous cattle with very big guts are eating away. Snow-white egrets, thousands of them, flock to the skies, then back on to the garbage they alight. More garbage trucks roll in.

People are going through the garbage sorting this and that; some are lying in huts made of cartoon boxes. The sun bears down. My truck comes to a stop. It is surrounded by 'prospectors'.

I jump out, the ground shakes. Then the nauseating odours of decomposing garbage hit me. I feel like turning back. But the sight is too amazing, dreadful perhaps. I have to see this.

As vultures upon carrion the prospectors descend upon the load ejected from my truck. The truck pulls out, back to the city of Kingston for another load. I am now standing atop tons of garbage. Scores of people shamelessly rummage through the mess.

I glance towards the hills, the seat of opulence, where people live in the lap of luxury, and back to where I am, the pinnacle of poverty. My skin crawls and my nostrils are under assault. The camera clicks away as people hide their faces. I look around one last time. Then back into another truck, back to the other side, to the city of Riverton.

There, I enter a pigsty operated by two middle-age brothers along the bank of the Duhaney River. They welcome me into their domain. The scent of stale porcine excrement slaps me in the face. Bam!

Pigs of various shapes and sizes are everywhere. Lying beside some, under a shelter, are well-fed stray dogs, some of which are playing with the piglets. There is even a game of tug of war. A pig and a puppy pull a string between them, after which the puppy jumps on to the pig's broad side and rolls back down. He did it over and over again.

The stench rises under the blistering sun. My stomach turns and turns. I want to regurgitate everything from within, but I cannot.

Mock a fight

Laughter erupts as two grown men got into mock a fight. I, too, am laughing, because they are laughing, and I laugh some more. Then I stop suddenly, and close my lips tightly. There are flies, flies everywhere.

But listen, there is joy coming from under the bridge.

In the river that flows between Riverton City and the dump, young boys bathe and frolic. From the bridge they jump, performing for the camera. Summertime and the living is easy in a place where hardships abound.

I have had enough, I say my goodbyes and retreat down the dirt road guarded on each side by piles of old tyres. Oh, what a Riverton City! One way out of that city, I am gone ...