During a garbage crisis, Cochabamba's poor find gold with a Maryknoll Sister.

If you lived in a city with a trash problem, wouldn’t you look up to people like Maria Zelaya and Lucia Mamani, who scour the streets for items we can re-use? 

Not in Cochabamba. In this Bolivian city high in the mountains, the thawis are distrusted for working all day long sorting through trash they can sell for income for their families. 

“Some neighbors disapprove of them because they are not as clean as some people would like them to be,” Sister Judith Esmenda said of the trash collectors. People right in Cochabamba say the thawis are not to be trusted because of their "unstable" backgrounds.

The Thawis are poor, their work is irregular, and some have problems with alcohol and drug abuse.

Sr. Judith Esmenda sees treasures among the poor of Cochabamba.

That matters little to Sister Joy, as the thawis like to call her. You see them everyday on Cochabamba’s streets.  Busy sifting through other people’s garbage at their own risk for items that can be recycled, thawis often are invisible to passersby. Not to Sister Joy.

“They are my friends, and I will always relate with them as my friends,” she said. “Hopefully, society will also see them as friends.”

While other people pay them no mind, Sister Joy insists on celebrating their every achievement, such as when they begin community courses in carpentry, dress-making, cooking and more. It can also be when the thawis overcome their traditional shyness to become leaders in their barrios and villages.

Sister Joy and her group of professionals meet with the thawis at least twice a month so they feel connected to a faith community. Most of the thawis migrated to Cochabamba from the Bolivian highlands. In their Quechua language, the word means “to sort.”

“They speak Quechua, and for me to be able to relate to them, I took Quechua,” Sister Joy said. While their parents arrived here as newcomers, young thawis are now going to school in Cochabamba and getting good grades. 

The thawis’ latest contribution looks to the future of Cochabamba. The city has had a garbage problem for years. The city owns only 43 garbage trucks for a populace of more than 500,000 people  In July, the city’s only landfill will close because of environmental health risks. Only recycling by all can reduce the city’s waste. 

So the thawis are working with Sister Joy to teach Cochabambans how to separate their organic and inorganic trash. The thawis want to recycle the trash to  produce fertilizer they can sell. Both Maria and Lucia are taking an active role in exploring all the ecology-friendly alternatives. 

They’re learning more than how to recycle, though. Lucia and Maria are learning how to lead.

Said Sister Joy, “The two of them are leaders of the communities where they live.”