In the labyrinth of the dirty streets of Iquitos there is a place where a dark heap persists, a habitual garbage dump. In the third block of Tupac Amaru street, as a tribute to the eternal or as confirmation of an error or urban carelessness, there is always rubbish dumped at different times. There is no time in the day or night that that place is cleared of nuisances. From different surrounding parts, from certain distant places, from unimaginable places, people arrive with their daily garbage and, as if by agreement, they leave their miseries in that place. It is as if these people were determined to form a hill or a mountain in the middle of the street.
24 hours a day, whether it is sunny or rainy, the mother-in-law arrives or the cranes pass by, the waste forms a solid settlement, a large and compact makeshift landfill. There, daily, shells end up, pieces of everything, useless objects, useless things, junk, daily waste. That place is like the chosen corner, the authorized deposit, for some people to leave the immediate garbage. That site has become a place of pilgrimage where men and women come to leave the dirt they produce in their homes. What mysterious hidden force, what being of the last shadows, has decided that the rubbish should accumulate there? Is the choice of that place to dump the rubbish a tacit and communal agreement, an indestructible pact or is it an unfortunate coincidence?
In an unleashed war against this perennial pile, the garbage trucks usually arrive and carry the accumulated waste. For a few moments that place is clean of dust and straw. And it seems that another era begins in that street. But it’s all illusion, because suddenly people begin to arrive with their waste. None of them or they have any modesty for dirtying that street. None of them has any fear of the fine that hangs over their heads. It is as if they felt exonerated from any crime, from any payment. And so far no one has told them not to pollute that place on that street and no one has charged them for dumping their waste.
The perennial garbage heap of Tupac Amaru street rises near the corner with Cahuide street. In addition, it is bordered by a church, a chifa, street food stalls and so many houses nestled on the edge of the paved road. And, without any inconvenience, that dark and eternal heap dares to remain 24 hours a day, like an ugly stain on a pleasant face. What is surprising is that none of the people who live in that place dare to prevent this unauthorized deposit from forming. It’s like everyone’s okay with trash piling up under their very noses. We do not know of any protest to end this ugly habit of accumulating garbage in that part of the city.
At the level of the streets of the city of Iquitos, that eternal pile of garbage from Túpac Amaru is just a contribution. It is not a pear from the elm or a solitary exponent of civic filth. Because in other places, in other places, there are improvised deposits that people accumulate as if nothing had happened. Anyone who walks through the arteries of that city will suddenly find other piles accumulated daily. In so many places there are many places where the garbage is shown outside the hours and the work of the collection cars. These piles rise up throughout the eastern metropolis with impunity. Nothing and no one can do something to put an end to these signs of urban sloppiness.
The perpetual piles of garbage on the streets of Iquitos are evidence of an unbearable evil. The cultivation of public filth by people who for one reason or another do not collaborate with public cleanliness. As if they like to live near or in the rubbish, they tend to generate the rubbish and dump it in certain places. These citizens are the ones who contribute to making Iquitos look dirty at all times. In one way or another they collaborate with the evident deficiencies of the collection cars that can never clean Iquitos. What to do against those unscrupulous people who do not understand the reasons for not infecting the streets of the city with their waste?