i am staying at a small place on the north east coast of bali. to reach the resort you need to either drive down one of two paved paths through the village towards the sea and turn through a small flowing stream and then through a coconut grove past the fishing boats and then park underneath the big tree near the little warung (kiosk), then walk past the warung, bale (small platform with thatch roof), a fishermans' shack, a small temple and then the resort which has a small dirt path running in front of it with coconut trees and fishing boats separating it from the shore. or, you can drive down the other paved path from the main road as it turns through some small warungs, market, houses, thru orchards past the temple and suddenly ends with three steps leading down to the sea, and to the left, past the running stream that changes its size and shape all day and everyday and past some fishing boats, to the gate of the resort. both of these options have been cluttered with candy wrappers, empty cigarette boxes, plastic bags with straws discarded after drinking the colored water, water bottles, incense wrappers, broken thongs, and plastic bags of every size and shape. the resort owners have heard numerous times the response of guests about how beautiful it all is, if only there wasn't so much garbage all around.
when i came here this time i was ready to give back to bali in return for receiving so much from her. so i thought i would clean up the rubbish along the beach everyday. i thought that was simple enough, but slowly the stares, comments in balinese, giggles, and bewilderment cast a shadow on my innocent intention. what for me seemed so obvious, was not obvious to the villagers. i started wondering if instead of giving back to bali something from my heart, i am actually hurting their hearts by trying to "fix" what is already perfect in their eyes, just because of my western preconceptions. how not to be called "arrogant" if after a ceremony, when everyone has left their plastic wrappers from incense, holy water, cakes,flowers, cigarettes, water cups, strewn in front of the temple grounds, you ask them to clean it up, since it is next to the resort?
i tried different tactics; going out early in the morning before they are out and about so that they won't notice...but they are out and about at 4 a.m. so that didn't work. tried to do it just in "public" areas like the beach, and not in front of the warung or their shacks...but this is still their place and i again feared i was insulting them by picking up their cigarette box that they had just thrown on the ground. a few gave me a thumbs up or a smile or bent down and added a scrap of plastic to my big sack too. and slowly slowly over the month 8 big sacks of little scraps of plastic and rubber and metal had been collected and were piled in a space near some trees for some eventual collection by someone....
i also tried to figure out what my answer will be if someone asks me why i am doing it....since i saw children asking their mothers or fathers "what is she doing?". will i say that it is just prettier to look at? (which for me really was the incentive, since i definitely differentiate between aluminum candy wrappers and plastic bags in the middle of a grassy field, or just a grassy field). so then i was imposing my sense of beauty on nature according to my western standards of beauty. or am i doing it because i have snorkeled and seen what happens to the corals and the seafloor with the rubbish? (but in fact there wasn't the slightest correlation between 8 bags of plastic in a month, and 4 pieces of plastic i saw when snorkeling!).
i asked myself if i am trying to change them? to instill new behavior patterns in a manipulative way? shaming them? but i saw that i was perfectly content picking up rubbish every day from the same places, without any expectation or need that there wouldn't or shouldn't be rubbish thrown where i had just cleaned the day before. it was simply a peaceful and interesting activity to do every morning as the sun rose and definitely gave a sense of satisfaction after having struggled with the bamboo pole with a dull (ugh) nail on the end of it trying to pick up a wrapper from a mint candy and after an hour having a sack full just from those little bits and pieces that no one would even bother to bend over to pick up (and often, when i would try and "nail them" it would take 3-4 attempts as "little elves" played tricks on me by pushing the little plastic wrapper onto the ground again before it reached my open sack, and then tempting me to just leave it after the 3rd attempt!)
also questions arose as to is it really the truth? is this plastic destructive to nature? i had my doubts. it seemed like the sea was doing a pretty good job with the ebb and flow of naturally covering up with tons of sand all the rubbish at dusk that it had just spit out onto the shore at dawn....or that the plastic bags that on the dirt path had slowly turned into the path too, or the pieces stuck in the field were pretty disintegrated while i tried to lift them up from the rich earth and put them in their proper place; the garbage sack. and the waterways that traveled through the village were practically knee deep in plastic and leaves that seemed to be slowly decaying into the earth with the help of the wind and rain or water without human intervention.
more questions arose for me when i saw fishermen making bonfires every morning at dawn along the shore, and it was not for frying fish, but rather for burning the rubbish that the tide had brought in along with the leaves that had fallen about, and the odd lost flip flop or fast food containers and instant coffee wrappers and cigarette boxes. if they already had a working system of keeping the rubbish under control, why is mine better? who asked me to improve it? why am i picking about around their boats? here, little piles of rubbish are being taken care of by them, in front of their houses, boats, orchards, roadside....so why is it better to collect it all and then have huge quantities burnt in some garbage dump? if the dioxide fumes are so dangerous from the plastic, then why would i want huge quantities that i had collected, be burnt in the garbage dump causing the same ecological damage?
i tried asking people for answers. one was that the plastic does disintegrate, either from the fire or in the sea, but it turns into little particles that the fish then eat, and then we eat the fish...mmm...(sounds fishy)...another was that the plastic laying in these streams and sea does not allow the water to breath and thus the dangerous and "can be fatal" dengay mosquito has a good breeding ground, along with other health hazards. those two seemed to be my calling card. i could feel justified and correct in wanting to allow all of us to eat healthy fish and not be threatened by dangerous mosquitoes in this area which has so far been safe from them.
and just as i was discussing the option with the owner that i may just stop, since their approach may be the right one for them and what is the point in collecting so many bags of plastic, i saw the gardeners carrying big sacks of rubbish that had been collected at the resort 2 years ago in the initial attempt to keep it "clean and green", but had been stored at the resort all this time. "what are you doing?!" i asked. and he said " the garbage collectors have come to collect the garbage."
what?!@%*& garbage collectors?@!$%& since when does tejakula have garbage collectors? "since today! every saturday morning they will come and collect the garbage from us." i was so excited that i ran out the gate to see it happening. yep, there they have a little truck and they are heaping it on! i ran to get my camera from my room and hoped they wouldn't be gone by the time i got back. i excitedly began to document the first garbage collection in the village of 11,000 residents of tejakula! all my intentions and efforts had paid off! the energy was in the air! it was happening! tejakula was actually going to become "clean and green" and not just have banners proclaiming their new motto along the main road! i just stood there smiling and photographing. and then thought i would get one from the front too....and how i laughed when i went around the front of the "truck" and realized that it was just a little motorbike they had attached a big wagon too. this was the first garbage "truck" for the village, with 2 paid workers that seemed content with their lot; just like where i live in israel, there is a "driver" who just sits and waits until the "worker"
has dumped all of the garbage into the truck and then he can press on the gas and go to the next stop.
i would like to believe that the villagers can sense the pleasure from hanging out on the beach, or meeting at the local club, or walking into the temple which is no longer cluttered with plastic and aluminum wrappers (although there was something "magical" about the sun shining and reflecting on them!). and at best, i just continue to give them a good laugh when they see that crazy westerner picking up plastic that would eventually recycle itself...just not in that speedy way that westerners like to do things, but in a greater slower cycle of creation, existence, destruction, and rebirth which is their asian outlook.
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