The atmosphere in the cab of the bouncing pickup truck was silent and serious. We all sat there knowing that something marvelous had just happened. Miriam broke the silence, “Time has been changed for those people, now time will be seen as Time Before the Magicians Came and Time After The Magicians Came.” We had just performed a magic show for the children and adults working in the Chalchuapa Garbage Dump. These people work long days in this desolate dump, a greyblack landscape of smoldering plastic and rotting rubbish, scrounging for scraps of aluminum and food, anything they can salvage, sell or eat.

Miriam had wanted to simply show us how some of the children in El Salvador are forced to live when she suggested we drive down the long road into the vast landscape of rot and desolation. Once we saw the wild pigs, dogs and vultures, children and adults rooting around in the rubbish, it was clear we needed to do a magic show for these people.

The pickup truck drove down the long rutted road the garbage trucks follow to dump their loads. Often young people climb up into the bed of the trucks to have first pick of the load. Some children have been buried alive under the garbage if they slip and fall while the truck is dumping its load.

When we were deep into the dump, we got out, put the tailgate down and set up our props and began to perform. Folks started to gather around wondering what was happening. As I waved a red silk in the air and ran it through my fingers, it was clear something was about to happen. They watched and when I opened my hand and the silk had vanished a wave of wonder and laughter went through the gathering crowd.

With each trick, the excitement grew. Rob did a wonderful routine with the multiplying rabbits in the hands of one of the children. I ended, as I often end, taking a long piece of white paper and began to tear it to shreds. One by one the pieces went into my mouth and slowly I began to pull a long chain of linked pieces of white paper from my mouth and then the paper turned into a 45 foot rainbow streamer that seemed to pour endlessly from my mouth. The audience began to squeal with delight. One woman, who might have been thirty-five or fifty five, began to laugh and smile as she jumped up and down clapping with delight. I went over to her and decorated her with the rainbow garland. As Miriam said later in the day, this woman embodied in her enthusiastic delight the joy the crowd was feeling as the show came to an end and we slowly shook hands and bid them farewell.

Time has been changed, before and after the magicians came to the garbage dump. That’s certainly true for me. We brought magic to the people -people who will probably never go to a movie or a concert, a dance performance or a play. The poorest of the poor who often feel trapped in their lives.

What I really remember from the Chalchuapa Dump was a boy, maybe 14 years old, stripped to the waist, covered with gray ash, wearing dirty gym shorts and flip-flops. His thin supple ash covered body seemed like a Sahdu in this world of waste and desolation. His body was strong and proud as he watched the show, hands on his hips, eyes bright and alive. What an inspiration to see such a shimmering soul in that stinking dump. A beautiful flowering soul in a world of waste. I hope I touched him as much as he touched me. Perhaps he now feels magic is alive, the impossible is possible. Dreams might come alive and flower in his imagination. Like some Houdini of the imagination he might escape the Chalcuapa Dump and, as Eloise from Asaprosar said later, “Perhaps that moment of magic he felt during the show, that the impossible is possible, perhaps he will keep looking for that in his life and make it happen.” He might find that in his life, the impossible is possible. This is certainly my hope and the dream of Magicians Without Borders.