One Man’s Trash is Another Dog’s Treasure

This morning was stormy-looking, that foreboding gray sky, but it never really rained. I love Georgetown under dark clouds — it makes the colors of the buildings pop, and it also accentuates other things, such as graffiti, peeling paint, and multi-colored trash.  It looks gritty and bright, and it has just the right feeling.

The past few weeks, the area around the river has had a sickening smell due to waste from the rum distillery, and well, waste in general. Steve’s counterpoint described it as being “backed up.”  I’m hoping that this situation will get itself worked out before Karen and Gary arrive, but if not, well at least it’ll be an authentic experience.  Trash has become a regular fixture in our environment, whether it be stepping through it on our beach, watching it coast down the river to the ocean on our way to work, or uncovering large amounts of it in our backyard.  Most days now I hardly notice it, but other times it’s rather depressing.  

They say that disposal of waste is normally the first thing that new volunteers want to tackle, but it’s a classic example of volunteers trying to apply their cultural priorities in a totally different culture.  From my experience, it seems that to most people, the garbage doesn’t really bother them.  Van passengers throw empty bottles out the window, kids throw snack bags on the side of the road in front of their parents, it’s really “no big deal.”  Steve and I tried to start a neighborhood cleanup crew at the end of last year where on Fridays after school the kids would meet at our house and we’d pass out bags and gloves and wander around our area picking up trash.  We had a pretty good turn-out (10-12 kids each time).  I’m embarrassed to say that after four weeks it wasn’t the kids that tuckered out, but me.  I felt such discouragement to walk by a portion of road we had just cleaned a few days before, only to see that it was already totally covered with litter.  Also, when we cleaned up, most reactions were quite negative — ranging from “why bother?  It’ll only be there again tomorrow” to open hostility, telling the children that only dirty, poor people picked up trash.  I feel ashamed because there are environmental campaigns going on here, and I do want to be a part of that.  The government seems to have set this as one of its “issues,” and there are a few environmental themed programs going on in schools. But it’s certainly an uphill battle until there is a cultural shift, which according to psychiatrist and advertising specialist Dr. G. Clotaire Rapaille,  happens at a predictably “glacial pace.”

On a positive note, there is one member of our family who is benefitting from the overflow of garbage.  Little E-Lo’s toy stash has just about doubled since he started exploring the backyard.  Almost every day he finds a new “treasure” and takes it to his special place in the front yard where collections of “his” possessions reside.  A few weeks ago Steve glanced up from his yard work to witness E-Lo leaping towards him with a battered, pink My Little Pony in his mouth.  Now noseless (like all of his animal toys), it is one of his favorite companions.

 

Old shoes, Busta bottles, ripped up t-shirts, paint trays, every manner of previously used item seems to be turning up by our porch, thanks to the pup.  Yesterday I was none too happy to find a dirty diaper in E-Lo’s “special spot.”  Needless to say, we don’t allow him to keep all of his treasures.