Welcome to Ende

Welcome to Ende

Some weeks ago I was on a sailing cruise and we anchored off
Ende, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara province, for a trip to Mount
Kalimutu. We went by speedboat to Pantai Pasar, the beach
adjacent to the market. Upon arrival, the beach appeared to be
nothing more than an official garbage dump. Our transportation
was waiting on the other side of the dump, so the passengers had
to delicately trudge through the trash in order to reach their
vehicles.

The first question that would spring to most people's minds
would be: Why of all places did you or your captain choose this
particular beach to land at? That is exactly what I asked the
captain, and of course he answered that he did not know there was
a garbage dump there. On consideration, the sheer question is
rather widely off the mark.

The point in question is: Why do the vast majority of
Indonesians have a totally mythical approach to garbage disposal?
The moment waste is out of sight they consider it gone. In bigger
cities, rivers, gutters and drains get massively clogged with
rubbish, causing severe floods every single rainy season.

I don't blame the ordinary people. In the not so distant past
everything was wrapped in banana leaf which, indeed, decomposes
all by itself. The ones to blame are the authorities who are
entirely oblivious to the fact that plastic is not the same as
banana leaf. If they choose to keep on snoring behind their desks
and don't take the initiative to educate the people, it won't
take soothsayers to predict which crisis is going to hit the
country next.

FRANS HUNEKER

Gianyar, Bali