Sunday, December 20, 2015

The Sickly Dump Smell Returns

Today as I was listening to music in my car outside work I had a flashback. Not sure where it came from but a quick odour in the the car suddenly reminded me of the sickly smell your always surrounded by at the dump. That smell gets into your clothes, your hair, the pores of your skin, it is something that stays in your boots long after you have repeatedly cleaned them. That smell of old waste, rotting food, sweating people, pigs, dogs, stagnant green water, flies and cockroaches.

How can people get used to that smell? I remember going to the the dump one day this last trip and on leaving the truck Khun Noy (my driver) told me "Mehn!" which means "It Stinks!" He shook his head outside the dump entrance and said "Mehn!". How do the, families, the people live deep insiide that world? How do the children 24/7? For a few minutes here in the -13C night time snows of Edmonton Canada I was transported back to my life in the dump. It strange how things like smells can trigger such memories.