Recycling -- Toph

The first load of debris brought out in a wheelbarrow attracted some attention: the woman across the street was gesturing enthusiastically that we dump it beside her establishment (a restaurant, I suppose, based on the long table with chairs around it, though there are no real indications of this). So we did. And the next few barrows, before the woman three storefronts down on the left notices and wants a barrow full. So we started alternating between the two. Until a third showed up.

By lunchtime, children want to help. Two or three boys in particular, all under ten, taking the handles as soon as the barrow hit the street. The first few loads were taking the waste bricks and concrete within sight. But soon, they were being led by adults, out of sight. We dare not follow them, but feel anxious, knowing the barrow is conceivably gone forever.

It’s a long wait, as I stand helplessly watching a road with no returning children, with the image of the boys steering the barrow out of sight, one of them glancing back over his shoulder.

But then they do return, about five minutes later, cheering and screaming and smiling. (At the same time, I am cheering and screaming and smiling, knowing that I have not lost the wheelbarrow. Relief.)

So it continues. Whatever waste we produce, we put out, and by the end of the day one can see little piles of bricks everywhere. People are picking through the piles throughout the day… I find it hard to believe that this refuse can be of use or value. But clearly it can. Some of the stuff is gone instantly. Other parts stay, until we are driving away. My final image of Svay Pak today is seeing the pink doors we wrenched out of the building early this morning, being carried by two barefooted men across an empty lot, away from the building where there used to be cells that these doors guarded. Beautiful.