137th Year of Service to the Cleveland Diocese
Favorites
To bury the dead
Turning troubles into dreams
Caring for those in the dumps
Coming out of the dark
Sharing the gift of life
Sowing seeds of justice
Caring for those in the dumps
Avon doctor reaches out to Mexico’s outcasts
By Brad Miklosovic
Like many people, Dr. Phil Gigliotti vacations in Mexico.
While most people visit established resorts or the Mayan Rivera, enjoying fine accommodations, Dr. Gigliotti stays in a dump.
Not a bad hotel or resort, an actual garbage dump.
The 56-year old internist spends his vacation time providing medical care for the poorest residents of Mexico City, those who live and work among huge piles of garbage.
COURTESY DR. PHIL GIGLIOTTIDr. Phil Gigliotti, a parishioner at St. Teresa of Avila Parish, Sheffield, cares for people living in the garbage dumps of Mexico.
Before the Avon resident and member of St. Teresa of Avila Parish, Sheffield, took his first mission trip to the garbage dumps over a decade earlier, he was like the vast majority of tourists to Mexico--he was there to relax and have fun.
He was approached by his wife’s cousin, who had gone on missionary trips to the area, about coming along since the residents needed medical care.
Gigliotti was stunned.
“I asked her, ‘You want me to spend my vacation in a garbage dump?’” he said. “I went to Cancun for vacation. Besides, I had heard horrible things about Mexico City such as it was very polluted.”
The idea to help people who needed it was something that Gigliotti was unfamiliar with.
“While my mother was spiritual, my father wasn’t,” he said. “I didn’t go to Catholic school. Church and God wasn’t important to me, I thought God didn’t have an impact on my life.
However, after he was married, his wife pressured him to attend Mass. He wasn’t pleased nor was he willing. “I thought why should I spend an hour of my time with those hypocrites and losers.” He did, however, tell his children to go to Mass so his wife would “stay off his back.”
People have come to trust and rely on Avon resident Dr. Phil Gigliotti who takes time to travel to Mexico to serve the society’s outcasts there.
He might have been attending Mass, his heart wasn’t in it, far from it, Gigliotti was actually opposed to faith those who practiced it.
“I used to belittle those who told me to pray,” he said. “When I heard a preacher, my first thought was they were trying to bilk little old ladies out of their money. I was obnoxious.”
But it was one of those preachers that planted the seed in Gigliotti’s heart that grew into his faith he practices today. “When it was explained to me about the purpose of animal sacrifice in the Old Testament, it made me realize what Jesus did for us.”
He soon sought out his wife’s cousin and asked to come on a mission trip.
Gigliotti has now been on nearly two dozen trips as a part of Renewal Ministries in Ann Arbor and Proclamation Ministries in Akron.
“Our mission is to go to the garbage dumps and provide services, set up a medical clinic, and bring clothes and supplies to the residents.”
The residents of the dump spend their days digging through the garbage, looking for anything that can be reused, earning between a dollar and a dollar and a half a day. “Men and boys rake through the garbage, pulling out plastic, glass and other items. A truck comes by later to pick up the material.
“These people are the outcasts of society. Nobody wants to go to the dumps. When you tell someone you are going there, they look at you like you are out of your mind. When Jesus talked about the least of our brethren, it’s this place. People living in waste are the opposite for what we were created for. This place is the opposite of Eden.”
Life in the dumps is permanent for the residents.
“Once they live there, they can’t ever leave without the permission of the owner,” Gigliotti said. “The people are extremely oppressed.” The “owners” of the dump are drug lords and political parties, both of whom have private police forces that control the people.
The dump residents face many hazards. Their daily contact with garbage makes them outcasts along with the health it presents. According to one study, the garbage dump scavengers have a life expectancy of 35 years, while the general population in Mexico has a life expectancy of 67 years.
Drug use is rampant, as is sexual abuse, particularly of young girls.
“Once I heard a woman crying in her home,” Gigliotti said. “I knocked on the door, but she wouldn’t let me in. Finally, I persuaded her to allow me in and there were three people in the house, a mother, grandmother and a young daughter.
“The grandmother had just learned that the girl had been molested and was very upset. The mother told me she believed the girl had a sexually transmitted disease and my heart sank. She was right.”
Gigliotti was able to cure the girl, but she was never the same little girl.
While the mission team provides a great deal of help, Gigliotti and his wife, Joan, realized that the residents of the dump needed assistance throughout the year. They heard of a priest, Father Manuel, at a nearby parish--there are no churches in the garbage dump itself--who was very active and went to see him.
“We visited his parish, which was in a horrible part of Mexico City, and talked with him. He took us on a tour of his neighborhood. While he was walking in the street, people were very happy to see him. To say his parish has meager resources is an understatement, but they are still better off then those living in the dump.
“We told him about the residents of the garbage dump and he said he never heard of them nor had he ever seen them. So we took him to see and he was blown away.”
Father Manuel told Gigliotti that the next time the mission team was in Mexico, he would come to help and bring others.
The priest brought more than 400 people to help. He now goes to the dump on a regular basis, bringing food, clothes, and toys for the children and says Mass for the residents.
The children don’t have any education in their faith. “They are baptized, but after that it’s hit and miss,” Gigliotti said. Father Manuel has started classes to teach the children about God and the Catholic faith.
“One of my biggest joys is that we mobilized the people in Mexico to help the residents of the dumps.”
However, Gigliotti doesn’t focus his mission on the residents of the garbage dump alone. The mission team also helps a nearby orphanage.
“The orphanage started when a child was left with a group of nuns at their convent,” Gigliotti said. “Soon people started leaving children at the convent to be cared for by the nuns. However, the nuns needed to leave the convent and one nun chose to stay and care for the children. She cares for 218 kids, nearly all of them with mental retardation.
“When we are in Mexico City, we spend a day or two with the orphans, giving them money we have raised, and helping out. We sort of adopted the orphanage.”
In spite of the difficult lives of the residents, they don’t have a negative outlook.
“When you talk to the people, they are always happy--and they live in a garbage dump. They are happier than some of the people who live here.”
While the residents receive much from the mission team and their efforts, Gigliotti pointed out that the mission team receives much in return.
“The best part of the trip is that the Americans are impacted most, more so than the Mexicans are,” he said. “After a trip, they can’t stop talking about it.
“You feel in the midst of this intense poverty that Jesus is there. If He were walking around today, this is a place he would go.”