Trash

For those of you interested in daily life here, you might like to know what happens to trash. If people are outside, they drop it (candy wrappers, tissue, etc.) wherever they are. Each day I see a woman wearing a bright orange vest hunched over the street sweeping with a short broom. I put my trash in a wastebasket at the guesthouse and take it downstairs to Baba when it’s full. Baba then takes the trash to the corner and dumps it in a container (an improvement over years past when the trash went in a big heap in the corner for the goats to eat). But don’t worry about them—they chomp on the overflowing rubbish.

As for laundry, every few days I hand wash my clothes, wring them and then hang them to dry. I take bucket baths and heat the water first on the gas stove if it’s a cold enough day. Otherwise I splash frigid well water on myself to cool down. Let’s just say that I’ve needed to heat the water lately.