ごみ捨て場で見つけたクリスマスツリー、ＳＮＳで希望の象徴に　ブラジル

【ピニェイロＡＦＰ＝時事】違法なごみ捨て場は、クリスマスにふさわしい舞台ではないかもしれない。だが、ある少年がごみの山からクリスマスツリーを拾い上げた瞬間を捉えた写真は、インターネット上で瞬く間に広まった。（写真はごみの山から見つけたクリスマスツリーを拾い上げるガブリエウ・シウバ君。ブラジル北東部マラニョン州ピニェイロで）
　ガブリエウ・シウバ君（１２）は、ブラジル北東部マラニョン州の町ピニェイロで泥壁の小屋に、母親と兄２人と住んでいる。家の隣はごみ捨て場だ。
　１１月８日、シウバ君は下校するといつも通り母親と一緒に、ごみ捨て場で物色を始めた。掘り出した青いプラスチック袋の中には、小さなクリスマスツリーが入っていた。
　「うちにクリスマスツリーがあったことなんてなかった」とシウバ君。
　ＡＦＰでも活躍するフリーランスのフォトグラファー、ジョアン・パウロ・ギマラエス氏がその瞬間を捉えた。
　上半身裸で写っているシウバ君の表情は謎めいていて、この発見物をどうしたものかと思いあぐねているかのようだ。彼の子ども心はくすぐられたが、家計の足しにはならない。だがその写真は、ソーシャルネットワーク上で拡散した。
　今やシウバ君一家の住む小屋の中には、光輝く大きなクリスマスツリーが飾られている。ごみ捨て場から拾ってきたものではなく、写真を見て心を動かされた人から贈られたものだ。
　さらにたくさんの寄付が家族に寄せられた。「服やマットレス、かごに入った食料ももらいました。ありがたいです。今年のクリスマスは何とかやれそうです」と母親のマリア・フランシスカさん（４５）は言った。
　写真を撮ったギマラエス氏は、隣接するパラ州に住んでいる。スーパーから出たごみを運ぶトラックの後を追うピニェイロの住民を映した動画を見たことをきっかけに、ごみ捨て場で写真を撮ろうと思いついた。
　動画を撮影したエウリコ・アルーダ氏は「このごみ捨て場は、世界の終末から現れたみたいです。あちこちで炎や煙が上がり、ハゲワシや犬がさまよっている。極貧の最下層の暮らしです」と言う。
　アルーダ氏はこのクリスマスツリーの写真によって、シウバ君が陥っているような窮状に対する人々の関心が高まることを願うと語った。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/12/15-12:47）

An illegal garbage dump seems an unlikely setting for a holiday story, but when a photojournalist captured 12-year-old Gabriel Silva pulling a Christmas tree from a fetid mountain of trash, the image quickly went viral.
Silva lives with his mother and two older brothers in a small mud hut next to the dump in the town of Pinheiro, in northeastern Brazil.
It is a disturbing landscape of rotting waste and discarded plastic, where dozens of trash-pickers compete for scraps of food with vultures, cats, dogs and cattle.
Silva was with his mother on November 8, digging through the garbage as he does most days after school, when he unearthed a blue plastic bag with a small artificial Christmas tree inside.
I had never had a Christmas tree before, he says.
His face has an inscrutable expression in the picture that photographer Joao Paulo Guimaraes captured of that moment, as if the shirtless young trash-picker were unsure what to make of this find: it intrigued the child in him, but would do nothing to feed his family.
But then the image went viral on social networks, and the little plastic tree turned into an unexpected Christmas present.
Silva and his family's dirt-floor hut now has a giant, sparkling Christmas tree inside -- not the one from the dump, but a gift from a benefactor who was moved by the photograph.
It is just one of a flood of donations the family has received.
We've gotten clothes, mattresses, baskets of food. Thank God, we'll be able to get by fine for Christmas this year, says Silva's mother, 45-year-old Maria Francisca Silva.
There has also been money, thanks to online collections -- a windfall for Maria Francisca, who earns around 600 reais ($105) a month selling recyclable materials from the dump.
The family hopes to soon fulfill their dream of building an actual house.
They have already realized one longtime wish, thanks to an initial donation of 500 reais: install a hydraulic pump to bring up water from their well, replacing the rope and bucket they used to use.
But Silva's favorite gift is a bicycle he received from a teacher at his school.
- 'Like the apocalypse' -
Silva spends much of his free time at the dump with his mother.
I prefer to bring him with me. If I let him run around in the street, he could get into drugs, do things he's not supposed to, she says.
He's a good boy. He always helps me.
The episode has turned Silva into a local celebrity.
Every day, people want to take my picture, ask me things, he says.
Guimaraes, a freelance photographer who collaborates with AFP, lives in the neighboring state of Para.
He got the idea to shoot pictures at the dump after seeing a video of residents there running after a garbage truck carrying waste from a supermarket.
It was just crazy. There were probably 50 people chasing it, says Pinheiro's public defender, Eurico Arruda, who shot the video.
That dump is like something out of the apocalypse. There are fires and smoke everywhere, vultures, dogs. It's the bottom rung of destitute poverty.
Arruda, who has set up a cooperative to help the trash-pickers defend their rights, says he hopes the Christmas tree picture will raise awareness about the plight of people like the Silvas.
The local government has already promised monthly welfare payments of 100 reais ($18) for the trash-pickers, and vowed to build a legal dump next year that complies with sanitation regulations.