I am fascinated by how public garbage is in Sofia.  I am not talking about litter. I not really that concerned with the copious amounts litter on the streets and in the parks.  Maybe I should be. But I am not. What's really been holding my attention recently garbage--garbage cans (or maybe garbage dumpsters is a better word), bags of garbage and people digging through the garbage.

There's nothing private about garbage here. As soon as it's out of your apartment it's up for grabs. This is sort of shocking to me.  And it's all very centrally located in large dumpsters so that everyone in the blocks can toss their garbage out and makes for a series of hubs for garbage throughout the neighborhood.

I've never really thought of garbage as a having any value. Then I began to think about what I was throwing out.  Who wants that stuff? What do they think about me? Does my garbage look different than Bulgarian's garbage? What does my garbage say about me?<!--more-->

Mostly though I feel sad for the people I see sorting through the garbage with a stick or their hands.  I don't know what they are looking for and sometimes I wonder if I could make their work easier by putting certain kinds of garbage on top.  Looking into these people's bags or carts it's not clear to me what they are seeking. Maybe they don't know either. But they do get a pretty good look at my life, my habits, what I buy and what I throw out.

Now that I am paying attention it seems that every morning I see someone sorting through the garbage while everyone else is on his or her way to work.  I can only assume that there is some sort of an economy circles around this searching, sorting, poking and prodding.

This said, I am much more careful now about what I throw out. I am careful to rip up atm receipts and not to toss out anything with my complete address on it.  The funny thing is I don't think that anyone could steal my identity here in Bulgaria which was something I worried a lot about during my years in Washington DC.  But I don't want too much information floating around for anyone to rescue from the garbage. Here, it's not as if I am being inundated with junk mail and credit card offers as I was in the States but still I am careful.

In some ways, I think I might be being more careful now that I live in Bulgarian than I was when I lived in Washington DC. This is probably backwards.  But the risk is more obvious here in Sofia than it was in Washington. Funny how that works. Garbage becomes more public and I worry more about it--when there's probably actually less to worry about.

I guess it's the nature of garbage.  I throw out what I no longer want. I thought it was waste. I thought it was useless. However I'd never thought much about what happens to the garbage after I toss it out.  Now I just hope that my garbage doesn't embarrass me--or say too much about me. And maybe just maybe, based on my garbage no one knows that it's the American's. But I'm not crossing my fingers or holding my breath on that one.