Diggin Deep: Trash Pit

I am going to be so sore in the morning. I dug a 1m deep 1m diameter HOLE IN THE GROUND today. Why? Ever think, I mean REALLY think, about where your trash goes? Well here in PY we dont have the luxury of being disconnected from our basura by curb-side pickup. Every piece of trash I make sticks around unless I do something about it. What usually happens to it here in PY? Option one is "tirar no mas" meaning it just gets thrown out back. Obviously if 6 million people are just going to throw stuff anywhere, you run out of space pretty quickly. Second favorite way of getting rid of stuff? Burn it. Specifically, put it in your front yard, pour kerosene on it and let it go. Although some people can tell you that burning is bad, many people are completely ignorant of the health and environmental consequences of burning things like plastic, chemical containers, and aerosol cans. Because of these problmes, environmental education is a BIG part of what we are up to here in PY.

And for anyone to take me seriously down the line when I start trying to tackle these issues in my community, I need to be a model of responsible trash disposal. So that hole I was talking about will be my trash pit. I also am making a compost pile. The crazy part is that I've been told that a 1m diameter 2m deep hole will last me my whole service (a little less than two years now). SOOO does that mean that in the last 23 years I have generated something like 11 square meters of garbage? Hard to wrap your mind around!

Today I also planted my garden! Many people in my community have beautiful gardens but they all pretty much grow the same veggies--tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, onions and scallions. I decided to try and grow some "weird" veggies like eggplant, swiss chard, and spinach to get some PYans to try new stuff when they are ready. I've never really had my own vegetable garden before so I'm pretty excited.

Here are some pictures of my PY garden process. Here everybody gardens in raised beds called tablones (helps a lot to keep things together when it rains), so that's why it looks like I've buried three bodies in my garden. The fence in the pictures is my favorite part...my neighbor made it for me and its the only way I can keep her chickens from eating everything!

The sticks are marking off all the different stuff I planted...spinach, eggplant, basil, cilantro, parsley, squash and swiss chard. And that grassy thing in the corner is Cedron Kapi'i, delicious terere yuyo

Look how big Chipa is getting! Shes going to have to learn to chase the chickens away from my garden!