Dumpster Divers Unite!

Yesterday I was determined to fill my day with labor intense tasks. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon I've accomplished so much. It really helped that the night before going to bed, I've listed down the things I wanted to do. I made lists for almost everything before this but after reading Doris #15 which I recently got from Noly and Shah distro, I felt a fond feeling that I was on the "right" track. Having control over my own life. Not letting anything slip away with so much time on my hands. These few weeks, I was kind of in a honeymoon period because of this new found love. Being alone jolted my inner conscious to get on/over with this mushy limping feelings we let seep in our subconcious when being in a relationship. Relationship empowers when the foundation is strong. Sometimes we just got to be apart to realise that we're drunk in our own potion of love. We need to quickly snap out of it but not being a robot and let emotions aside whenever the moments comes.

Getting out of bed this morning was really a pain but 30 minutes after the alarm clock was hit to snooze a couple of time, I sat down while still not wanting to wake up. I thought to myself, if I wasn't going to follow my own plans of the day which is not to serve anyone and go to work for someone else but myself, I would feel horrible and failed. So I jumped out of bed. Sore neck. Sleepy.

Whenever I'm home, I don't shower when not neccessary. So instead, I wrote on my list that I will wash my clothes the first thing upon rising. Part of it maybe to be in contact with water. To allow my body to be alert. I soon realise that washing towels manually using these bare hands is damn hard and tiring! It took alot of strength to squeez the water out of these fabric. They are etremely heavy when soaked. I was showering with my own sweat. It was awesome.

*~DUMPSTER DIVING~*

Last week, me and Arip went to the local wet market behind Noisy to scout for vegetables in the dumpster. We made a mistake and came too early about 10 a.m where the vegetables were still on sale and not many were discarded. So we went back and waited. At about 12.30 noon we came back but the garbage truck had taken away the discarded vegetables. We only managed to find the last stack of vegetables wrapped in plastic bags which the last vegetable stall discarded. A fellow scavenger, an old Chinese auntie in her 50s who was also at the dumpster site, tipped us off that the best time to come and dumpster dive is at 11a.m before the garbage truck takes them.

So out with another attempt! Yesterday I had gone to the market at about 11.30a.m to try my luck but the garbage truck was already there. I cycled around the market to find the remaining vegetable stalls that were not yet closed and found a nice Chinese aunty with still loads of vegetables on her table. I bought some chillies, ginger, and petai so that I could communicate with her. I asked about the vegetables on the ground of her stall whether they were going to be thrown away. Suprisingly, she said some of the unsellable vegetables will be sold to restaurants with cheap prices. In my head I thought, owh! the might been thrown away vegetables are served in possibly posh restaurants where posh people dine not knowing that their vegetables are the same quality (near dumpstered vegetables) as our free food we gave to the homefree and poor people. heh~ or maybe she sold it to normal mamak restaurant kot.

Anyway, I told her of our plan to set up a free food distribution chapter in this vicinity. We need loads of free vegetables. Then she said sometimes she gave her leftover vegetables to someone living nearby too. She generously gave away her vegetables and totally support the idea of free food. Now we got loads of tomatoes, lady's fingers, cucumbers, long beans, some chillies. Enough to feed easily 30 people or more. The bag was so heavy that I had to send back my bicycle and come back to carry it by foot to Noisy.

I made tomato paste/sauce for pasta out of these tomatoes. I'm calling people to come and eat with me. We just need people to bring spaghetti or the like so that we can eat it with the vegan bolognese tomato sauce. Maybe (if can) also any ingredients (of non animal please) we can put in the sauce as extra lauk (i.e oregano, mockmeat etc). While we're enjoying the delicious food, we can also discuss on how we can cook together next time and distribute food on the street. We can bring our party outside!

I've just got an sms from Ekin inviting me to do some scavenging / hijacking? one night market. I'm bringing the food there so we can eat together.. (^_^)