Marine Debris Blog Posts
Encountering the Marine Debris Crisis in Indonesia
October 05, 2018
I took in a deep breath then let it out quickly as I approached the group of middle schoolers gathered around a single desk.
I blurted out, “Apa kabar?” One of my few memorized Bahasa Indonesia greetings.
Half a dozen young faces turned towards me. There was a brief pause before they shrilly responded,
“Biiiiiaaak!!” and promptly collapsed into a pile of laughter.
I grinned and moved into the circle to check on their progress. The students were hand drawing a bar graph depicting the different types of marine debris we had surveyed on a nearby beach. We didn’t share a language, but we could communicate through our data.