Imagine the most foul combination of human by-product.  Human feces, decomposing body parts, medical waste, partially eaten food … all decaying in one melting pot.  Then imagine growing up in that shit.

Rach Gia is a bustling town on the Cambodian border in the deep south of Vietnam.  It takes 6 hours by bus to get there from Saigon.  There is a garbage dump 22 kilometers away where all the city’s waste is delivered.  It’s three years old now.  The old dump, on the beach, on the Gulf of Thailand, reached its capacity in 2007.

Thirty-five trucks come daily from 2 p.m. until after 1 a.m.  The people gather and wait as if they were in a bread line.  The back end of the truck slowly lifts open and the people anxiously await the sewage that begins to dump out.  They take sharpened, hook-like tools and jab at the pile being released in hopes to speed up the process.  Liquid pours out and splashes on the hands and faces of those nearby.  A truck operator walks on top towards the back end.  He takes a broom and brushes off any remaining stuck items.

The people sort through the garbage like clock work.  They dig for plastic to recycle.  An entire family working can earn 40,000-50,000 Vietnam Dong per day, or about $2.10-2.63 USD.

I’ve never been much for photographing children.  Their innocence is both beautiful and, as bad as it sounds, uninteresting to me.  I prefer the flawed decisions of adults.  You can see the regrets in their eyes and the struggle on their faces.  

But the children who live in this garbage site are different.  At least to me.  I am drawn to them photographically.  Because they have both the innocence of children and the struggle of someone years beyond.  They walk beside their parents in the dirt and grime and collect the plastic.

The site and smell is enough to make anyone germophobic.  You try to ignore the details but they are disgusting.  The rubber boots that I am wearing sink into a sludge that seems to have no bottom.  As I squat down to photograph a better angle, my camera bag sits on the ground.  The bottom is covered in an unknown substance.

Millions of flies cover the ground.  As I walk they fly up and back down again like an ocean wave.  Every other second they land on me.  I constantly swipe them away until I just give in to the feeling of an insect crawling on my skin.  I look at the people in the dump and I count how many seconds they last until they swat the flies away.  Most do not even care.

Some of the people give into the filthiness and choose to live with it.  Other’s take what persuasions they can.  Rubber surgical gloves are traded back and forth to the point of tearing.  Some wear rubber boots — mostly mismatched — while others brave the garbage in simple flip flops.

The left hand of one man is freshly sliced open.  Already it is badly swollen.  He pulls pieces of a white surgical glove over the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding and continues sifting through the garbage.

Their “homes” line the edges of the site.  They are made from salvaged pieces of trash.  Surrounding the area is a moat of water.  I ask if the water is suitable to drink.  They say no, it is poisonous.  I assume this is because, in time, the garbage seeps through the ground.  But as I stay longer, I see septic trucks driving in and dumping raw sewage into the water.

As the sun begins to set, streaks of lightning fill the sky.  Tall halogen street lamps turn on. Their dim, orange hue is accompanied by a familiar buzzing sound.  Within minutes the light warms up to a clean white, but offers little in way of illumination.  Families retreat to their homes to find their headlamps.  Insects gravitate towards the brightness.

With the sun fallen, the heat subsides.  A cool breeze comes from the West and for a moment the smell disappears and I can actually imagine sleeping here.  Fires burn outside each home as dinner is prepared.  Three children that I have been photographing lead my assistant and I through the camps.  Their headlamps seem nearly as large as their heads.

The families settle in for a break.  They pass bowls of rice around and share stories that end in laughter.  This instantly becomes my favorite part of the day.  Because I forget where I am for that time.  A diesel engine rumbles in the distance as another truck arrives.  Time to get back to work.

  ***

Kevin German is a photographer who lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.  His column, “The Motorbike Diaries” appears every other Wednesday.  He is a founding member of LUCEO.

Imagine the most foul combination of human by-product.  Human feces, decomposing body parts, medical waste, partially eaten food … all decaying in one melting pot.  Then imagine growing up in that shit. Rach Gia is a bustling town on the Cambodian border in the deep south of Vietnam.  It takes 6 hours by bus to ...