The place was well known as the Scavenger Village. Even the residents called it that, proudly. That’s what they did: they scavenged garbage. That’s who they were, it was their identity, they said. To the city authorities, they had no legitimate claims to property, and many of them didn’t have identity cards. The media called a local politician for his thoughts, a man from the same office that built the half-empty, slowly decaying market. “I told them to get out. . . . They can’t live there,” he said. “I don’t care where they go, that’s their problem. It’s not their land, it’s a city-owned cemetery.”