Got em covered Got 'em covered - Tallie Colcord, Brooke Chaney, Amanda Cotier and Marry Fuller of the Boothbay Harbor Congregational church youth group hold a Guatemalan blanket that the church is raffling off to raise money for local children and families. (Photo Joe Orchulli II)

While people from the Boothbay region go to the dump to dispose of unnecessary items and even to find things for fun, there are people in another part of the world where a trip to the dump can mean either life or death.

There is a large tract of land in Guatemala that people are living on which used to be part of a surrounding dump where children would go as soon as they were old enough to walk to find food and items to sell to help keep their families alive.

This land, which has tiny shacks built from scrap metal, sometimes housing families up to 10 people, still has methane coming up out of the ground right into the homes in which they live.

The dump area, which is up to four miles deep in some places, has claimed the lives of people walking or riding in vehicles that suddenly pass through the surface out of sight never to be seen again.

Six years ago, Hanley Denning of Yarmouth went to Antigua, Guatemala (not the famous resort destination) for a language class.

The day before she was to return home to the USA, someone asked her to visit the Guatemala City garbage dump. She agreed. Despite her years of work with those in need nothing prepared her for the horrors she saw there, families living in cardboard houses and digging through the filth for food; few families with running, let alone potable water; scores of children with no formal education and rampant drug abuse.

Following her visit, Denning made a decision to make a difference by selling all of her possessions, and committing her life to helping the children and families who lived at the dump by founding Safe Passage in 1999.

Safe Passage is committed to providing education, food, clothing, medical attention and fun activities for children and their families living in the dump.

Along with Denning, members of the Boothbay Harbor Congregational Church have given feet to Jesus teachings on taking care of orphans and widows by forming a mission team then traveling to Guatemala from October 4 until October 11.

"It was really awesome! One of the best things I've ever done," said Tallie Colcord of Boothbay Harbor.

"It is so weird to see how they live compared to us. It is shocking. Their houses are like shacks with one bed, dirt floors and trash everywhere because people gather and sort through things from the dump that they can sell. There were kids everywhere, no electricity or running water, it was really, really sad. It was a life changing experience."

When the group first walked into the Guadaria (pre-school), the children surrounded the youth group girls and wanted to be held and hugged.

"It became a competition to see who can get into your arms first. It was really sad to see everything, but then again it made me feel good to see what we were doing, helping and giving money to them," said Brooke Chaney of Boothbay. "Some of the houses had as many as seven children sleeping in one bed and were right next to sewers and it really smelled. It was really sad to see."

The girls had seen a few pictures before they went but their experience was unlike anything that they could have expected.

"I am really glad that I decided to go. I wanted to get out of the country and try something different and it was definitely worth it," said Amanda Cotier of Boothbay. "I was expecting it to be sort of nice since Safe Passage had fixed it up, but when we first walked in to the Guadaria, it was bare and there were rats running across the room. "There are no flush toilets and no toilet seats. The team had to use a bucket of water to flush."

The girls also said that there were men with guns in front of every store, people sitting in trash piles and that dead bodies were even cast into the dump.

As far as the language barrier, the Reverend Sarah Foulger said, "We didn't need to speak a lot of Spanish as we were speaking the universal language of caring."

The visiting youth team did a lot of reading, crafts, and hygiene with the little children in the Guardaria.

Lana Brandt and Brooke Chaney did reading, writing, and educational games with the 5-and 6-year -old children. Foulger taught English in a variety of classrooms and helped the English department with lesson planning and preparations for summer school (which takes place in late October in Guatemala).

Adult leaders Larry Colcord and Chris Brandt worked with the athletic department helping with lacrosse, football and other sports programs. Russ Hoffman taught math to the junior high aged children, assisting them with algebra and trigonometry and introducing sudoku math puzzles.

Then on Saturday (a "no school" day for the children), the group took 4 & 5 year olds to the zoo. For most of them, this was a brand new experience.

"When we took the kids to the zoo and bought them a kids meal, which is something that they have never had before, one four-year-old took a bite of his chicken and put it away to take home for his grandmother and family," said Mary Fuller of Boothbay.

"They all took food home in fast food bags that were just bursting open for their families," Tallie Colcord said.

"You would think that children who have so little, when you put food in front of them that they would just kind of scarf it up, but it was just the opposite. They take their time in eating, they savor every bite, they stuff as much as they can in their pockets to take home to their families," Foulger said.

Fuller said, "The teachers get together once a week to give all of the kids baths and showers. They are so dedicated! The kids didn't care whether you spoke Spanish or not, just as long as you are there and give them a hug.

"When we were leaving, the teacher came up to us and said `Thank you, God bless you!' It was the only English that I ever heard her say," Fuller said.

Brooke Chaney said that she was in a bilingual class so some of the children there could communicate with her and there was a teacher who could speak English well.

She said that the conditions in that building were better as well. "Even though the kids there had homes with practically nothing and even parents that did not love them, they still smiled and seemed very happy."

"There were teens with babies, kids walking streets alone. Most of the families didn't have a dad in their life so the kids became really attached to the men who were on the trip," Tallie Colcord said.

Foulger said, "Those men were daddies all week long. It was very nice."

At the time of the group's imminent departure, there was a mutual desire amongst the teens to want to stay and continue to help and now that they have returned to Maine, they would all like to do a return trip someday.

To make a contribution and for more information on Safe Passage, go to www.safepassage.org .