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| Trashy river (one of the cleanest ones) |
Trash is a HUGE problem on this island. There is NOWHERE to put it! The island is overpopulated. There is no designated dumping area. There are no recycling centers. There is no trash pick-up. There are no landfills. There are no incinerators.
So what do people do? When we first arrived we asked people, “What do people do with the trash?” The answer, “They throw it in the river or the ocean.”
All it takes is a brief walk around our neighborhood and you will see the “river” filled with trash or the pretty beach near our house that has cascades of trash leading down into it. (Anyone who was wondering why our pretty island isn’t a major tourist attraction, now has their answer.)
But what should we do? We are environment-loving people. We went to college in Vermont. We reduce, reuse, recycle. We can’t throw our trash in the ocean!! In Chad we burned and buried, but we don’t have a yard to burn, bury or compost.
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| Grace on roof with compost barrel |
So what did we do when we first arrived? We copped out.
One of the first days our landlady saw a bag of trash in the kitchen and kindly said, “Oh, we’ll take that for you. Just bring your trash downstairs and we’ll get rid of it for you.”
There was our solution. We did what we could to minimize our trash but ultimately we gave it to the neighbors and tried not to think where it was going. We couldn’t bear throwing trash in the river or ocean, so we let someone else do it for us and never asked where they took it.
Then our team arrived. The problem of trash was again apparent to each household as none of us have yards. But our teammates were not content to let things rest. We suggested that we have a Trash Coordinator for the team and Jess quickly volunteered. She worked to get a big metal barrel to put on their roof for burning trash (still not great for the environment but we are working with limited options) and plastic barrels for starting to compost. Jess and Abby also had met people who made pots out of recycled tin. Now the team could recycle tin cans.
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| David getting dressed as angel Gabriel |
We followed other teammates’ expertise and Tom made a compost barrel to put on our house’s shared roof. We got a basin to collect our tin cans. We found a place outside near the stairs of the neighboring school where we could burn trash on Sundays (the only day that they don’t have class).
We’d like to say that eventually we would have been self-motivated to research composting, to find tin-pot makers and to look harder for a place to burn, but truthfully it took the team to push us out of our apathy and into action. Now the trash situation still isn’t great- we feel our carbon-footprint a lot more here and we don’t like it- but we’re doing better. Thank you team!
PRAYERS ANSWERED
We had a great Christmas with lots of yummy food and our team with whom to celebrate. We were able to take plates of goodies to friends and neighbors and share why this day was special to us. Most people are feeling better from their illnesses (though a new batch is sick now).
PRAYERS REQUESTED
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| Opening presents with the team |
