How does it feel waking up everyday to the stink of shits and trashes of the whole city? Ask them, the children of Bantar Gebang, the ones living everyday amongst the dump from all over Jakarta. They'll tell you how it feels to run barefoot on the trashes and how smelly it gets when it rains. No, they're not sorry they're there, living in the landfill, instead of you. Nor are they grateful for it off course. But they smile, laugh, cry, play, and learn to except everything with grace.
I went there several times in 2008, took some pictures, with some of my friends, activists from the church. But you won't find these homes if you look for it now, they no longer live there in the heap of dump. The government moved them just outside the landfill. I found the new place less smelly and nicer (and probably so did the government). But the parents of these children liked the first place better, for it was closer to their working place, plus the new place had problems with clean water. In 2009, my friends built them some nice public baths and toilets. I haven't been there since then, I don't know how life is there now.
And posting this, I feel kinda ashamed with myself, looking at the children and the trashes. When will we have zero waste so that no one has to look for our shits?
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