Picking through the trash

       Jose, our volunteer coordinator here, called this "composting". I found out about half-way through that we were actually picking through the trash. A local Balinese woman walked by balancing her big basket on her head (as they often do here) and she stopped to laugh at us. A few other locals stopped to stare or to ask questions about what we were doing. In terms of the bigger picture, we are getting the organic garden ready to grow things. You can't see it in this photo but on the other side of us, there are 13 large raised beds that have been put in (probably about 4'x10' each) and Jose is starting an organic garden at this site. Jose grew up in Australia on a farm and organic farming is one of his passions. He already did a similar project in a different city in Bali where the kids grew food, learned about recycling, did lots of project related to gardening, and learned English while they were doing it. He is trying to replicate the success they had there at a new site in Nyuh Kuning, which is a town right outside of Ubud (and for anyone who has read the book "Eat, Pray, Love", Nyuh Kuning is the town of Ketut the medicine doctor. We passed by a sign to his place, and Jose said that after the success of the book, he now charges Westerners about $30 a story - that is a lot by Balinese standards!).

      In any case, Jose told us that people were stopping to stare (or to laugh) at us while we were working because it is so rare to see Westerners doing any hard labor here. Most of the Balinese are basically living in third world conditions and the cost of living is very low here, so the Westerners who come usually just hire locals to do the work for them. But there is another reason why what we were doing is so funny to them - this is their trash! There is no trash pick-up or trash trucks here the way we have them in America. So this is where people have dumped their trash. Yes, Jose is right that almost all of it is organic, and yes he is right that it will make great compost for the garden. And since this is right by the front of the garden, it will look much better once it is cleaned up. But the truth is that we spent a good part of the afternoon yesterday picking out the bits of plastic (like candy wrappers and straws) that will not actually compost, and moving the rest into our compost bins for the garden.
        We went to the grocery store today, and I have to admit that the experience yesterday made me cringe at any food items that were wrapped in plastic. I had just spent too much time picking out plastic bits that won't decompose. Actually, I think that the fact that at least 95% of what was in this trash heap was organic speaks a lot about the shopping and eating habits of the Balinese. It didn't smell bad at all - its basically just breaking down and becoming dirt. Aerobic decay should never smell. I think that one of our trash heaps in the USA would be much different. There was already a lot of good rich compost at the bottom of this heap, which Jose and Niels were very excited about.
        In any case, we'll be volunteering in the garden all week, so we can post more photos tomorrow. I think on Thursday we will be planting seeds there for the first time. I didn't bring the camera today because I thought it would rain. But hopefully tomorrow we will have some more pictures of our garden project. Next week we will start teaching English at the organic garden with the kids in Nyuh Kuning (and hopefully teaching them a bit about gardening too).