Moravia - waste not want not

The adventure for this morning was too Moravia. A neighbourhood here in Medellin that has had an incredible transformation over a couple of generations.

We sat with Marina, a lady who is the daughter of one of the founding families of this neighbourhood. She explained that her family was escaping the violence of Communa 13 nearby when she was 12 and moved to this location.

But what was different about this area? It was a landfill site. And the people who started living here would wait for the waste trucks to arrive and dump their trash. The people would then sort through all the waste material and reuse and recycle everything. This was to build their homes here, materials to make things and sell, materials to trade with and even food that the meat processors didn't use.

Eventually this landfill site became a community with houses and shops everywhere, built purely off the trash. Now it is a gardener's paradise. With plants and seeds grown from cuttings and bits that were thrown out. A football field that her father organised by protecting that area from people building in it for 24 hours a day. Establishing a place where the kids could play his favourite sport. Improved by a generous donation from a man who came into the area, adding lights and the fake grass in the field. He didn't know who the gentleman was who donated that until a short time later when he turned on the news to see the face of the man who helped the community - Pablo Escobar.

We participated in an activity of making recycled paper. Shedding up some old paper we mixed it with some purple to make a nice piece of recycled paper.Read more