hello.hello.hola.

The week we moved in, we met the trash guy; his name is Manuel.  I know that for sure because I asked him about five times before it finally stuck.

(this has happened to me with everyone I've meet the past couple of months; it stiiiinks.  Remembering people's names is so important - - but all the names are new! all of them! I can't remember all the names!)

 When we first moved in, Manuel asked me to separate all the trash - - food products go in one bag, everything else goes in another;  I do that for him.  And every day we all put our trash on the front step and he comes along and picks it up and puts it into the little cart that he pushes all throughout the streets of our neighborhood.

So today we crossed paths with Manuel as he picked up our trash, and we chatted.  (Manuel is always good for a pleasant chat), and we found out that when he takes our trash away, our recyclables get recycled, and that all of our food products get taken to some sort of processing plant that turns all of our food into compost.  He told me that 50% of the trash in our delegation gets sorted and processed like this. 50% !!! and that the remaining 50% doesn't get processed, only because they are lacking the facilities to do it. 
That surprises me! 50% off all the food leftovers in our delegation get composted?
does it surprise you?
I'm super impressed.

I've decided that we NEED to have Manuel and his family over for dinner sometime soon- - can you imagine all the insight he would have into our neighborhood?  maybe I should bump him to the top of the list?