No littering...soon

This article caught my attention:
MCD plans new, stricter anti-littering law soon.

News to me: there are already laws against spitting, littering and urinating in public!?
No way. When are those enforced?

If there are fines against demolition and construction waste lying around, the city of Delhi has to fine itself.

This sentence is funny to me: "Besides, all the pet owners who let their pets out into the streets to litter would be charged R500 by the civic body."
The pets are the ones throwing the trash around--of course! Those sneaky pet owners. Why waste time teaching your dog to fetch, when he could be the one to take out the trash. ;)

Dog security

On sunday morning I found a notice in my mailbox that said something like this:

"Please take note that someone in the neighborhood is poisoning dogs. Non-veg food has been found laced with poison. It was determined by authorities that our dog died of such poisoning. Remember that killing dogs is a criminal offense and protect your pets."

Something like that. It was actually much longer and used big words.

The next day, I saw a banner sign hanging over the neighborhood park entrance that read:

"Killing dogs is a criminal offense. Street dogs are our security guard."

Our security guards? Really. These starving, mangy dogs wandering the streets eating from the trash?
Well, okay, if you insist. But I hope the security force I pay each month to walk through the neighborhood with whistles and lathis is also doing its part.

The thing that really strikes me here is not that I don't care about dogs or pets, or the owners who are saddened by the loss of them, but that there are children--real, live children, human beings--also walking the streets, starving, unkempt and eating from the trash.
I mean, what if one of them ate this alleged laced-with-poison non-veg food? Would there be banners and mailbox notices and "investigations"?
Why isn't there more concern about them?
Why are there overweight dogs and malnourished children in the same neighborhood?
How do we so easily close our eyes to the poverty and suffering around us, yet manage to get upset about dogs?

Hear me: Dogs are great. Having and loving and caring for pets is a good and responsible thing. It is legitimate to be attached to and sad about losing a pet.
But I will still insist that a hungry child is more important.

Ahh, the beach

I love the beach.
I love taking pictures at the beach.
I forgot to take my book with me today, so instead I watched crabs run away from me and watched trash wash up along the shore.
Yucky to the trash.

Here are a few other things I saw...

The bird who liked the trash

A woman swimming in full burqa

Well preserved dead fish

A footprint

Tipping the trash collectors

Happy New Year.

That is not the greeting I was met with this morning when I opened my door.
"It's a new year, give us money," said the two trash collector's boys.
Expecting this, I handed them 10rs. They were dressed in what must be their best clothes and even had their hair combed.
The older boy looked at the 10rs, pocketed it and repeated, "It's a new year, and a new month."
Thinking he meant to pay him for the month of trash collection, I asked if he had change.
He said he did, but when I handed him 100rs, he said, "This is good for the month. 50rs for the month, and 50rs for the new year."
What! Is there now a set amount for "extra tipping"?
Ah they train these children well for conniving me out of my money.
But seriously, I pay so little for the service of having my trash collected from the door every morning, how can I miss 50--no 60--rupees?

The trash is gone

This is how my roof looks now. Clean. Swept. Empty. But it used to look much different.
It used to be that there was a truck load of trash on the roof.

My apartment comes with a small storage room on the roof. For some reason, the landlords (or maybe other building residents) had filled it with trash.

?
It's a mystery.

Anyhow, some kabardi walleh (trash collectors) were hired to clean it all out and haul it all away. They were told they could keep anything the found inside, whatever value.
It was no problem getting them to empty the room onto the roof where they could see what was there and what they wanted. Getting them to come back and finish the job was another matter.
So this morning I began carrying it down to the neighborhood trash area myself. One bucket load at a time. I figured if I could make two or three such trips a day, I might have it done in a month.
As I dumped each new load onto the trash pile, the kabardi walleh watched me, told me which pile to dump it on. I told them I had more, lots more. And I showed them the pile of stuff.
We haggled over the price for a while and I continued to carry down one bucket full after another. Finally, it became ridiculous enough that I was doing the work when they could be earning money that they agreed to my price.
And we agreed: when you show me that it's all clean, then I hand you the money.

By the end of the day, they had carried it all away and even swept up the leftover dust. Nice. One less thing on my mind.

Locked out

It was an awful beginning to the day.
I'd arrived at the apartment to open it up and let in the painters when they got there. There are three locks on the main entrance. One on the outside metal, screen door and two on the wooden door behind that. An upper lock and a lower lock. I have keys to the outer metal door and the upper lock on the wooden door. The bottom lock is broken and it has no key at all.
I was aware of this and was careful not to lock the bottom lock, and until yesterday, I meticulously checked every day before closing the door to make sure it wasn't locked. But with so many people going in and out of the house, I can't watch them all.
Yesterday I was tired and in a hurry. I didn't check that bottom lock.
So when I tried to open the door this morning--well, that just wasn't going to be possible.

The boy who comes to collect trash was there outside the door. He tried to be helpful and turn the key himself. I let him keep trying while I tried to think what to do.
Not long after, the painters arrived. They tried the keys and told the boy to go off and find some wire to try to open the lock with.
The boy was quick and brought back both the wire and an older boy to watch what was going to happen because the crazy foreigner locked herself out of her apartment.
That whole assumption was kind of maddening--the fact that they all believed this was something I had done. All of them except the true guilty party, that is (I suspect one of the painters had set the lock to close). Yes, I'll take responsibility for not carefully checking to see whether the lock was closed and being the one to close the door. But I didn't set the lock, and I didn't appreciate taking all of the blame.

One painter went off to locate a locksmith in the nearby bazaar and the other found a brick for me to sit on during our wait.
When the locksmith finally arrived, he looked the door over, said it would be hard work and asked too much money to do the job. He knew we were "held captive" in this situation and intended to get all he could out of it. Even though none of us had the tools necessary for the job (being that everything helpful was locked inside), the locksmith was sent away.

And so we waited for the landlord to show up.
And while we waited, a pattern was put in place. The two boys had disappeared. It was only the painters and I left. Every few minutes one of them would try the keys, say what a bad thing this was, ask if it were possible I had more keys in my bag somewhere, and then tell me "no tension, no tension". While I would think of a new person to try and call for a new idea or some needed consolation.
For three hours this was how things went.

And then the landlord arrived. He had a screwdriver, a hammer and a chisel. And, he had a friend of mine on the phone who was familiar with the broken lock and other handy, fix-it things.
It was only a few moments before the door was opened and the offensive lock removed so it could never happen again.

Oh may it never happen again.

For my birthday, I'd like water, please.

I'm moving this week.
This is a way bigger job than anyone anticipated.
We thought there would be some repairs and fix ups--a few days' work-- and lots of cleaning.
The landlord thought there would be some minor repairs and a little cleaning--a day's work.

The reality is much different.

Yesterday:
One of the men who came yesterday to remove the old furniture and other trash (why do people keep old medicine containers or not throw out their coke bottles?) broke a window in carrying it out. His hands got cut and that was the end of the junk moving out.
There was no electricity and the electrician was no where to be found.
There was no water to begin washing away the pounds of dust. And further inspection revealed the water pump has actually been stolen.

The dust is thick over the old furniture that needs to be removed, the peeling cupboard doors needing replacements, and every other inch of the place.

The floors are actually white marble. Can you tell? :(
There is so much dust you can see it in the air in the photo.

Here's some video so you can see and hear the work taking place.



See the view from my balcony? Perhaps there's a silver lining in sight?

The electrician came today and now there is power. Hooray!
So tomorrow, I'm hoping for water...

Free range cows

Where is the best grazing?

It would be interesting to ask the cows.

There's a cow and her calf who seem to like the edges of my driveway.

There must be some choice greens around the transformer where a sheep once got fried. (Roasted lamb and no power for the surrounding houses for several days.)

As you can see, the animals are still permitted to graze near it.

But their favorite is the trash heap, because that's where I see them every day.