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