The Haunting of my Garbage

I frightened him sometimes when I’d open the metal door to put my trash in the trash bin.  When we lived in Jakarta, I don’t remember that a trash truck ever came by, but all my trash somehow disappeared.  The moldy leftovers that had been forgotten for too long in my refrigerator, the fruit peelings, empty milk cartons, and the thousands of other things that were just so much detritus to be ejected from my home.  It all disappeared.

One of the biggest takers seemed to be a young boy, probably about eight years old.  I saw him several times; maybe he was just the least experienced.  Maybe in a few years, he’ll slip silently up and silently away and whoever it is who lives in my house now will never know he exists; never know he’s the one taking her stale bread and coffee grounds.

The first time I opened the metal door on my side of the 8 foot concrete wall, I found him, scrabbling around in the debris.  He looked up at me with wide, brown, startled eyes, his face smudged, his blue shirt filthy and torn, before scuttling away backwards, like a crab.  For my part, I stood in startled silence, the new trash bag dangling from my hand, my own eyes wide with surprise.

“Come back!”  I wanted to say.  “Come back, what do you need?  I have it, I’ll give it to you!”  But I spoke no Indonesian, and he was gone.

After that, I was embarrassed about the things I threw away.  They were still trash to me; I didn’t want them, but I was embarrassed to set them out for him to find as treasures, squashed between the JC Penney catalog and the scrambled eggs my son hadn’t wanted for dinner.

I saw him often; he was always startled, frightened, quick to disappear.  My Indonesian didn’t improve quickly enough for me to call to him; the best I could offer was a quick and encouraging smile.  No one else knew of our encounters; had the day guard seen him, he would have chased the boy away.  I spoke of him to no one; I wondered how I could help him.

And then I was required to get on a plane to go to America to have a baby.  And after that I was required to stay in America when all family members were evacuated from the Embassy.  And I never helped him, and I never spoke to him, and he has haunted me ever since.

Is he still finding treasures in the trash of the wealthy US Embassy employees who live in that house on Brawijaya street?  Does he have a home?  A family?  Does he live on the street?  What does he eat – or do I know and I am embarrassed to admit it?

And why was it so hard for me to think of a way to help him?  Couldn’t I have come to the trash, every time prepared with… a bag of clean clothes, some money, something to eat that wasn’t already garbage?

My son is eight now, about the age of the boy in Jakarta.  And I look in his smiling grey eyes and remember the startled brown ones from so long ago.  And I imagine what it would take for me to send my boy out to dig through someone else’s trash for his supper.

And then I imagine what it would take to make sure nobody’s sons or daughters would have to dig through the trash for their supper.

What would it take?

**Written in honor of Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty**