WENDY'S MUSINGS I "Throwing things away..."

NOTICE: We are starting a new series in the blog. So far, we have posted joint descriptions of our shared adventures. But we want to also update you on what we are each involved in individually. So, from time to time we will post sections called "Wendy's Musings" and "Patrick's Reflections." They might be a bit more serious so beware! Here's the first installment:

Being in a place with limited resources increases your awareness of the amount of raw materials you consume. Even though our level of consumptions was far higher in the US, I am much more acutely aware of every plastic bottle or plastic bag I throw away, every non-local product and kilowatt of power I consume. Back home, I felt a small twinge of guilt every day when I would get coffee or diet coke in a Styrofoam cup. Here, my conscience won’t allow me to buy a diet coke in a plastic bottle. I have to find it in a returnable glass one. I am not sure if it is the scarcity of resources, or the visibility of the trash, or the evidence of the impact of human consumption on the landscape that is at the root of this. Everywhere, the streets are littered with plastic bags and empty water bottles. Trash is piled beside the road or left to float out to the reef. The land north of town is eroded and bare from the coral mining, the ocean grows cloudier and more polluted every year, and the fish that are caught get smaller and fewer from over-fishing. The last stretch of virgin coastal forest is slowly shrinking like a shallow pool of water evaporating from the edges, despite efforts to protect it from women gathering wood to feed their families. In the US, trash is neatly bagged and removed from sight twice per week. I don’t even see the fate of the useless plastic packaging that I throw away. I never see the evidence of the strip mining so it doesn’t bother me to buy aluminum, steel and silicon based electronics. The other day I found myself repairing zip-lock bags with bits of duct tape that I salvaged from the labels on our luggage. I felt very local. It should be noted that Patrick has had no trouble adjusting. He scolds me every time I come out of the fruit market with something in a plastic bag.

One example of our reluctance to waste anything is Suki’s dog food. It is very humid so we try to keep the dog food tightly closed to keep it from getting soggy. One morning I noticed that some of the kibble was very furry and green. Yuck (poor Suki). I picked out the green bits from her bowl and resolved to do something about it after work that night. After dinner, we poured the bag of dog food onto the kitchen island and one-by-one picked out all the green bits of kibble. We then baked it in small batches in our little oven for 30 to 40 minutes per batch to try to kill any remaining mold. The kitchen smelled putrid, although Suki thought we were baking the most delicious thing EVER. We stayed up until after midnight trying to salvage the rest of the dog food. There was a new, presumably mold-free, unopened bag in the pantry so we didn’t have to do this just to feed Suki. We just couldn’t bear to throw it away. After baking, it was nice and crunchy and she loved it.

Never in the US would I spend all evening re-baking dog food or trying to pick the ants out of the sugar or trying to salvage bread that stood in a pool of water for three days just to avoid throwing it away. But here, you almost can’t do anything else.