What I Learned Today… Composting!
by Pasquelle van der Jagt
Actually I am supposed to learn the children something, but instead they taught me today how you have to compost. The workshop about the composting was the first activity we did with SMPN 15, one of our schools in the coastal area. I’ll give a brief explanation about “How to compost”:
· For the composting you need organic garbage, like food scrape or something.
· After 1 day, this organic garbage
o Will smell bad
o Has leachate (fluid that comes out of the garbage)
o Has maggot (larves from the flies)
o Mushroom will grow on it
o There will be a lot of flies around it
So what to do for the composting:
· Dig a hole in the soil (like a cat which has to poo)
· Put the organic garbage in it. It’s better for the composting procedure to cut the organic waste in small pieces.
· Put the soil back on top of it (close the hole)
· Smell to the soil if you can still smell the bad smell. If you can, put more soil on it.
· Now you put a net with paddy husk on top of the soil, this will take the bad smell away (absorb it).
· At last you put on a small piece of black cloak. This will repel the flies from the compost.
· Now you have to wait a few days and your compost is ready to be used by example for fertilizing your soil.
The kids were very enthusiastic about the composting and they immediate taught the catering guy how he has to compost. So after lunchtime if he has to clean up, he knows what to do with the organic waste. Next week we will come back to this school to undertake new activities with them. Further this day we had a short meeting at SDN Kaliasin I, about their event. Next Sunday they’ll organize a cultural event on their school. The trainees will represent their own country, so I’ll make ‘hutspot’, a real Dutch meal. I hope the Indonesian people will like it.