In February 2014, Jess Rothenburger and Warren FitzGerald went to live with a community of Nicaraguans who survive by scavenging from the garbage dump they live beside. The idea was to make a film about the experience, 25% of any profit from which would be given to the community to spend however it wanted. For these two gringos it was just the start of a journey of connections, joy, tears, injury and illness that would lead them to question the nature of survival, poverty, charity and volunteering. Gringos in the Garbage, the documentary film will be released in MARCH 2016. "We were looking out over a rubbish dump, years and years of putrid waste and tonnes of ecologically unsound plastic; over women and children scavenging through it to try and make enough money to buy food, or in some cases scavenging to actually find food itself amongst the discarded trash. We were watching the land burning, chucking up great mists of toxic smoke; a burning land which collapsed under little ones’ bare feet and seared their skin. We were watching the sun descending behind the cliffs which line the river; cliffs of compacted refuse which men mine for metals; risking their lives in landslides for a few dollars’ worth of corroded iron, just enough to feed their kids; wading in waters black with sewage and teeming with broken glass and hypodermic needles. We were sitting on the wall of a cemetery, clutching our masks and gloves, our skin dark with grime, cut and punctured, our innards battling alien organisms and substances. But why on earth were we sitting here in stunned silence as if what we saw was beautiful? How could there be beauty in all this?"