2008-02-01-2312Z


I think composting human waste is one of the things that people can and should start doing now, individually, and telling everybody who'll listen about how it works. Especially in third-world countries, where the raw (or nearly so) sewage flows right into the rivers and oceans. Walking along the shore and smelling the shit of a million people is fucking depressing. I'm only here for a week or two, but these people live with that smell day in and day out. I'll bet it wouldn't take more than a few weeks to improve, if overnight the flow of sewage were to cease. Of course, that won't happen. But besides stanching the prodigious waste of water used in flushing, and everybody having a constant source of good manure for home gardens, every individual who composts eir waste is one less source of pollution to the ocean. You can get started with a few 5-gallon buckets and something to eliminate the odor, like wood chips, sawdust, peat moss; or, possibly, seaweed, which is available in abundance on the beaches of Veracruz.

Another thing that's goddamned depressing is this infection. The wrist seems to be cured now, but I've got a couple of pimples which I'm afraid will turn into new lesions, and those on the backs of each hand aren't looking or feeling much better. I just scraped more of the white goop out of the left-hand sore and put on a fresh piece of onion. I'm not sure I could maintain my will to live for very long if this turns out to be a non-curable affliction. It keeps trying to get back into my throat and sinuses, too... although the constant coughing only lasted a day or two, and I've been free of it for maybe two weeks now, I'm still generating lots of mucus and keep having to cough or spit it out.

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