When I spent 6 months in Thailand in 2018, I lived for about 4 months in Mae Sot. I had a nice apartment with a/c a kitchen, a hot shower and a soft bed. I would go out to the garbage dump every night till I got burned out, could not take it anymore. I would then run back to my apartment and sleep in my a/c room for most of 2 days, before going back again. I have no idea how the families, the people of the dump survived in the garbage, all the time. To be in that heat, smell, slime, filth, flies, cockroaches, rats without having somewhere to run and hide, like I had. I still cannot believe it.
The family in the photo was new to the dump that year. They had a hut directly on top of the garbage (many other families had their homes to the edge of the dump or several hundred meters away from it). There was no light at night when I arrived, the family would just be sitting in their hut, on the garbage, in the darkness. The only illumination came from the occasional headlight. I am lighting this scene with 2 or 3 headlamps as I was making the photograph. It is the only way the photo could be made. When I left so did most of the light.
Family in their home on the garbage dump, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot, Thailand, 2018
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| Family in their hut on top of the garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot, Thailand, 2018 |
