Young scavenger struggles amid Venezuela crisis

Ronaikel Brito, 16, is the third generation of a family of scavengers, a job that provided enough resources for them until the extended economic crisis in Venezuela made valuable trash meager in landfills.

The Pavia landfill, where Brito and his family live, is located in an arid place near Barquisimeto, a city west of the capital Caracas.

In Pavia, where water is scarce and finding daily sustenance is hard work, its inhabitants do not fear the new coronavirus. Barely anyone wears a mask or maintains a physical distance.

Unconcerned about contracting the coronavirus, Ronaikel makes his way at first light every day through the dusty roads that lead him to the vast wasteland.

He carried a metal bar with a sharp tip, a sack to keep whatever he finds and the hope of having a new stroke of luck. Three weeks earlier, he found gold in the trash and made 20 dollars selling it; this in a country where most Venezuelans earn an average salary of two dollars a month.

The acute economic crisis in Venezuela and the restrictive quarantine imposed for the past year to break the chain of contagions of COVID-19 has reduced production activities to a minimum and has meant that reusable waste is now very scarce and more difficult to find.

In recent months children and adults who go to the dump every day take longer to find waste materials to sell or discarded food in good condition to take home or feed animals such as horses, goats, or pigs.

"The reality today is that you don't get as much stuff as you used to," Ronaikel said while inspecting the scraps he separated during the day.

Waste has been drastically reduced during the pandemic, particularly food from homes, restaurants, and wholesale markets, which were among the most coveted by garbage collectors in Barquisimeto once a thriving agro-industrial city where food waste was notorious.

Marbelis Brito, mother of Ronaikel and 7 other children, vouched for the change of times in the area. She has lived near the landfill almost all her life, and at the age of 5 began to help her mother in the garbage collection.

"Nowadays, people are not throwing almost anything away because they can't afford to do it like before," said Marbelis.

Despite the hardships, she stills considers the Pavia landfill "a blessing" where she can daily find scraps to sell or even some food.

But now that has changed and the jerks of luck where children can sell something of value with just hours of searching has reduced to rare episodes.

Henkel Garcia, director of Econometrica, a company dedicated to economic and financial reports and studies, said the case of Brito family is backed by the reduction of Venezuelans' consumption in the past decade. This drop amounts to a quarter of the average of 2013.

"We are already hitting rock bottom," said García.

Yet, in the isolated dry land of Pavia, little do the children care about economic forecast.

They dive into the landfill every day, hopeful to find something of value that can, maybe, earn them a few dollars to buy at least something to eat.