Lost in the capital's trash

In the context of the Municipal and Urban Health and Education in Maputo and its surroundings, which involves garbage collectors, Jornal Preto e Branco continues to work closely to understand the various profiles of the protagonists, as well as their origins. This time we went up Av. Keneth Kaunda, very close to Praça da OMM to hear up close the stories behind the faces that survive from recycling.

There, obsolete toys, used clothes and various recyclable materials are sold and competed for by almost everyone. We spoke to two garbage collectors who agreed to share their stories.

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João Júnior, fictitious name, 32 years old, withI'm at ourThe report, which ended up in the garbage containers from Sofala province, arrived in Maputo for the first time on a service mission that had him responsible for distributing equipment for commerce. He said that he remained for some time in the capital awaiting orders to return and that he ended up meeting some friends who led him to the path of drugs and during this process he ended up losing his documents, from his ID card to his driving license, among others.

Today he finds shelter on the capital's avenues, exposed to all risks, while he tries to earn money to guarantee his return to Sofala. In conversation with our reporter, Júnior confided that, if he manages to get the transport cost, he will return home immediately.

“It has been challenging to live in this place. When the police come by, they wake us up with kicks. They take photos with their cell phones, we don’t know for what purpose, other than the leftovers of food deposited here that guarantee our survival. So, what I can do at this point is look for money to be able to process my personal identification documents and return home, because without documents, I have no way of looking for any work,” he said.

Júnior went further when he reported that everything is lost on the streets, even human dignity. “I am a mutt par excellence, I have been sleeping during the day to stay awake at night, because the police confuse us and accuse us of any atrocities in this area and without documents it is still very complicated”, he said exhaustedly.

To survive, we collect used plastic, bottles, cans and other recyclable materials to sell. Sometimes we sell some goods that we find in the trash for use, such as toys and other household objects.

On the other hand, Junior confessed that people who deposit rubbish in containers should make life easier for the collector by dividing the rubbish into different plastic bags to better distinguish one from the other. At this point, everyone comes to deposit their rubbish at their own leisure, as it is a rubbish container.

I think they could separate the trash very well, see that this rice here can be consumed by those nobody kids who live there, we don't have any help from people who give us anything.

He ended the conversation by asking anyone who could help him recover his documents so that he could walk again without fear and look for other opportunities such as employment.