The author describes—with no condemnation or contempt—the plight of miserably poor people in a slum in Colombia. Homeless, unwanted and addicted to drugs and drinks, they live in a human hell hole. Society seems them as “disposable” waste!
They are called desechables, literally meaning ‘disposables.’ It is the same word which people use for disposable plates and cups—they have been used, and now they serve no other purpose. We throw them in the trash.
That is what the hundreds if not thousands of homeless people are called in Bogotá—the capital city of Colombia. Disposables. They are the people who live in the infamous area of about four blocks by four blocks in Bogotá’s centre called Cartucho. It is the threshold of Dante’s Inferno—[Inferno in Italian means “hell.” The verses interspersed here are from the Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s world-famous classic, La Divina Commedia.–Editor]
Thro’ me the way into the realm of dole;
Thro’ me the way of endless anguish prove;
Thro’ me the way to ev’ry damned soul.
(Dante, La Divina Commedia, Inferno, Canto III, v. 1, 2,3)
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Bro Carmel Duca MC
