Trash talk
So I’ve told you some of what it’s like for my time in Bali but what’s it like for people living in Bali? Well I haven’t actually lived with them but I do live beside them. Honestly here on Nusa Penida things don’t look so rosy. Our volunteer housing is less than a quarter mile from the turtle house. Every weekday we walk to the turtle house at least twice a day to care for the turtles. From the turtle house we walk about a tenth of a mile farther to the beach where we hunt for crabs and do beach cleaning. The taste of life I see on those walks is devastating. Wild dogs roam everywhere. Our path is littered with all sorts of trash. Every morning I wake to the smell of burning trash. I’ve never seen an outdoor garbage can or a garbage truck ANYWHERE. I have seen small shacks where families live. Right outside the doors of their shacks lies more trash, pigs, chickens, roosters and cows. The family and their farm animals share the space with the trash. In the morning and then in the evening the burning trash smell is masked by the family’s offerings- flower boxes set with incense to thank the Hindu god that they worship. The people of this country are filled with gratitude. Every child we pass smiles, waves, and says hello. Their constant thankfulness in a space of so much poverty gives me reason to pause. Sanitation is a given in my country. Not so here on Nusa Penida. When my volunteer term is over I will walk away and return to a resort in Bali where I won’t see all this trash. Meanwhile the people here will continue to view it here every day.
Today a group of us went snorkeling. The first reef we stopped at was littered with trash. I’ve never had to dodge trash while I snorkeled. It was a sobering experience. I wonder how the fish and turtles felt.
Every day a rotating portion of our volunteer group sets out on the beachfront to collect trash. The task seems almost insurmountable as if we’ve been asked to pick up all the grains of sand on the beach. Litter is everywhere. Ever wonder what happens to all those empty water bottles? Cigarette butts? Plastic bags? Fishing nets? Boat tie lines? Balloons? We find it all and more on the tiny strip of beach that we monitor. In the course of an hour or less 8 of us can pick up 4 huge bags of trash. Sadly we can’t even pick it all up. Some large ropes, pieces of boat, and hunks of metal must stay behind because we don’t have the space or strength to cart these items off the beach. Even sadder is what happens tomorrow. Tomorrow we will come back and there will be more trash. And we are cleaning on just one tiny strip of one beach. Beaches like this one exist all over the world with garbage rolling in every day.
The other day when we were picking up the trash an island boy saw us. He was wandering the beach and it seems he had nothing to do. While cleaning the beach was a learning experience for the boy my heart went out to him. This beach is his world. This ocean his future. What responsibility do we have to make his world a better place? As the boy helped us clean the beach he found a hard long plastic tube. He was so excited! He started blowing into the tube as if it was a musical instrument. He laughed at the odd sound it made. The mom in me was so torn- while I was happy to see a child at play I was worried that he was putting a strange piece of plastic from the dirty beach into his mouth. I wish the best for him and his future. I will continue to do my part- reusable plastic bottles, cloth bags, reusable straws, reef safe sunscreen, and putting trash in trash cans. I will continue to remind myself of how lucky I am today live in a place where it is clean and I have the option to continue to keep things clean. I hope you can do your part too.
Trash and a family pig we walk by each day on our commute
The bags of trash 7 of us picked up in less than an hour
The boy who helped us clean