Sanitary Services

 The garbage collection system in Bali is something else. Not sure what to call it. What is it called in America? Sanitary Services? I don't remember. But here, even the word 'system' is wrong. What we have on my particular street is a guy who comes every once in a while on a motorbike with a large metal container attached to the back. By the time he shows up, the four large containers across the narrow street in front of my house have been filled to the brim and then additional garbage has been piled on the top of the containers. My container is the green one with the designation 14A painted on its face, but is liberally used by other nearby neighbors when their own containers have been filled. Being a single man who doesn't really eat very much or produce very much garbage, little of that which has accumulated in my container is actually mine. 

But I don't mean to complain, only to describe. What I want to talk about is what I witnessed the other day after the garbage man (the 'sanitary engineer'?) had finished his job. The area was left stinking after the various plastic bags had drooled on the pavement or altogether spilled out their unidentifiable innards, and of their own accord, the old folks from next door, whom we call Oma and Opa, gramma and grampa, showed up with brooms and dustpans and buckets of water to clean up and 'deodorize' the area. Just them, mind you, not the young folks. And not me either, I'll admit. And this inspired in me an appreciation for a work ethic that is gradually vanishing. 

In America, I think, everyone has their job, right? The garbage man has his job, the street cleaner has his job, the recycling service has its job. It is in no business of the individual house dweller, whose only business is to pay for these services. But there are no such services here in Bali, and so we have gramma and grampa. And I say, God bless them. This is the way they were raised, no doubt. Community itself is a community effort. 

I myself am asked to do nothing. I'm not sure why. In fact, it seems a specific desire in general that I do nothing. Do I appear weak and decrepit? Incompetent? Crippled? I remember one time when the neighborhood was forming a cooperative plan to dig the mud out of the drainage ditches by the road so that the road would stop flooding. Everyone must take part, they said in an online chat. Except Richard.

Who died and left me king? I can't help but wonder.

At the same time, I can't picture myself digging mud out of ditches. It's hard enough to dig myself out of bed in the morning. 

Is it because they feel that I, as a foreigner, have no share in the systematic shortcomings of their country? Is there an awareness that in America we have people who do these things? Is it simply because I am not one of them, that as a non-citizen, I do not bear responsibility? 

Similarly, I remember one time when I had ordered a new jug of water for my dispenser. This is done from Oma, who typically collects the money for the jug and then asks a maid to bring the jug to my door. But on this occasion the maid was not present and the next thing I knew poor old bent old gramma was struggling up the road carrying the container.

"Oh my goodness, Oma, what are you doing!" I said. "Don't carry that yourself. Wait for a helper." And I tried to take the container from her, but she would not yield. "No, no, it's nothing," she said.

And then just this morning, the man who brings the dogs their food (because the dogs are typically hanging out in my driveway in the morning), discovered, by stepping in it, that one of them had vomited during the night. He left the food and went off, but then straightaway returned with bucket of sand and gravel, which he spread over the vomit, then swept up for disposal. 

They are not his dogs. They are neighborhood dogs. They belong to us all. And yet somehow it was his job to clean up the vomit.

I don't have this work ethic folks. I never have had. I guess my dad knew that. I avoided doing jobs where possible, and did them poorly when they could not be avoided. Sorry about that, Dad. I must have disappointed you so many times, and yet you never said so. You merely went about doing what needed to be done.

And now, lucky, undeserving bastard that I am, I'm not even allowed to pitch in.

Not that I want to, honestly. I have people who do that.