Monutains of trash and development theparkak 2

My last unit was on urban developments, specifically focusing on Landfill and slum communities. Over the last few days, I visited and stayed with a family that worked and lived on a landfill, as well as a slum community in The city.I spent three days and 2 nights at the landfill community , working with the family and other students collecting recyclables and other materials that the family can use for extra income.

I have to say that this was a interesting experience. I don't think that i would have ever thought that I would be living in a landfill community, or that a landfill community even existed. i mostly thought of people more so to be scavengers working on their own terms rather then living and working in a community. The first day that I was there, we went on a tour, with all the little kids of the community quickly latching on to us and following. At first glance I couldn't ever imagine the amount of thrash that had piled up in the land fill. There were mountains of trash that were maybe 50 feet in the air and solidly wide as well. The thing that most struck me was the presence of needles and other medical wastes. supposedly due to loop holes in the law, private clinics were allowed to dump medical waste in to the landfill along with other wastes.

The first day on the job was a interesting one. Me and the other students got out to the land fill at about 9 in the morning to work, equipped with nothing more then boots and gloves( which is actually more then some people who work there daily have.) I began hoeing away at the trash that was being hauled in to the landfill, picking up any piece of glass , metal or hard plastic that I could find and tossing it in to my homestay father's bin. After a little while, I felt like I was getting the hang of it. i was never really taken back by anything in the landfill surprisingly. the smell hadn't bothered me too much, and the fact that I was working in other people's trash never really struck me as odd. This was until I hoed at a pill that had just gotten out of a trash truck and found a dead baby cat. For some reason the image of that disturbed me and reminded me a little bit about the type of work that was going on. After a little while, we all went home, gin chowed( ate) and then played with the kids basically for the rest of the day until the next days work. The people who live in the community work at the land fill for about 15 hours a day, working days, and nights. The night of the second day I went over to the Land fill to discover at least 15 people busy at work still hoeing away at the land fill, just trying to make a living.

After two days at the land fill, we said our goodbye and went on our way, with out really knowing what was going to happen. Once back on campus for the hour or two before leaving for the slum, man of the people who lived at the land fill with me started getting sick. As soon as we made it too the slum community, people started dropping like flys, and had to start going to the hospital. I think I counted that 7 out of 16 people ended up going. While that sucked in and of it self, it started to make me wonder. The land fill community that we all lived in by no means was in any sort of financial burden. the families could very well provide for themselves and their family members with out any problems. However the health risks of working at the land fill were incredible. I couldn't help but think that if 16 healthy young adults could come in for only 2 days and a majority of then get sick, then what toll was the landfill having on the people that worked there day in and day out. not only that what about the kids that ran around the piles of trash with flip flops, or many times even without shoes. What was the effects that were happening to these people?

I came out of there intrestingly enough not thinking that the people working in the land fill were working in filth, in such a way that was deaning. I actually came out of there thinking the exact opposite. The people there are just making a living by collecting the recyled materials that they can find so they can provide for their families. The omai thing however in my opinion was why should they have to worry about serious health concerns ( medical wastes, gas) were they work .

The secodn homestay was teh slum homestay, To be honest with you. i felt pretty shitty the whole day that I was staying in the homestay due to cathcing something from the landfill, however i still had a great time. The night that I was there, i spent having a chat with another student and her homestay father, a really cool thai guy that drinks close to every night and somehow has english music playin during the day. we spent the might trying to understand each other and talking mostly about thai beers. It was great. haha

The " Slum" community that i stayed in was called Theparak 2. the intresting part about the community was the fact that in recent years they had developed so much , that it no longer was really a slum. The most intresteing thing that I found when being there was when i was talkinf to my friends homestay dad and asked hom about the slum, he corrected me immediatly ans sadi that " its not called slum theparak2, but development theparak 2." THis change in attitude about ones own community is pretty strong. ot be able to change to definition of ones own community is pretty amazing.