The luckiest among the dumpsite dwellers moved to work in the nearby porphyry mine. They now work ten hours a day and earn much less than before, but dignity has its price, they said. From there they can still see the smoke from the dumpsite (at the end of the rainbow), a constant reminder that inspires them to work harder with no complaints.
A man protects himself from the smoke in a graveyard in Akamasoa, a neighborhood founded by people who used to work in the dumpsite. A doctor working here as volunteer reported many cases of pneumonic plague from this area, due to the toxic fog coming from the dumpsite.
Fire burns endlessly in the midst of the hills of garbage, which can reach up to 50 feet in height, and the unnatural landscape is constantly imbued with a toxic fog. Children can't stay for long in that area or they would get their shoes melted by the heat.
The core of the dumpsite is scattered with small tombs, marking the bodies of fetuses and unwanted newborns. The ones who managed to survive, live permanently in the dumpsite as a community of orphaned children: the older look after the younger recently abandoned children. Even objects here start a second life, but they get quite different meanings from before.
Around 3,000 people currently live and work here, collecting plastic (sold for $0.05/ Kg) and metals ($0.50/Kg). Many of them came to Antananarivo hoping to find better living conditions and fortune, now they live in one of the place on Earth with more unreported cases of pneumonic plague, the most infective type of the so called Black Death.