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Life Without Economic Peace

The hardest thing I have seen yet in Kampala are the people subsisting off the Kiteezi Landfill. 1.2 tonnes of garbage are dumped here every day. It's bubbling with methane and unfit even for maribou storks to feed off of, but dozens of people subsist by scavenging for pig slop and selling plastic for $1/kg. A secondary industry has sprung up to serve the recyclers. Entrepreneurs sell peanuts, sugarcane and hot meals in the hot stench.

Until no one needs to subsist on a garbage dump, or, God forbid, live here, there is no peace - and there shouldn't be until they find justice. I saw a woman sitting outside of a cardboard shanty, with her laundry drying on a line. Her shack is built on the older edge of the garbage mountain. To reach it, she has to traverse a ditch of seepage and climb a mountain of garbage. It rains almost daily here, and when the big rains come, she will suffer even more. 

Meanwhile, politicians are fighting over dubious "service awards" that make them rich while the poor suffer, and confessing to corruption charges. God have mercy - because apparently, peole don't.

 

(as some do), traversing a ditch of seepage and climbing a mountain of garbage to get "home," with rainy season coming up, 

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