Chapter 4: Garbage cans much?

In the US everyone wants somewhere to put their garbage, but no one wants a landfill in their backyard. Understandable. Stagnant trash and waste smells awful and renders the soil inert to new growth.

In Mozambique there are no landfills, so everyone has one in their backyard. It's either buried in holes as far from the house as one can manage, or it is burned. We can all imagine the acrid smell of burning plastic from when we threw a little piece onto the campfire. Now magnify that 30x.

There are no social services for these people, so what other option do they have? Even in the places where there are public garbage programs they often simply will not come at all. They have to get rid of it, they certainly can't bury it in their neighbor's yard, or haul it a mile into the wilderness every week. It leaves only one reluctant alternative.

Their predicament is assuaged by the fact that Mozambicans generate a fraction of the waste that we do. But a little burning plastic goes a long way.

It's a huge problem on the continent that merits serious consideration. And undoubtedly there are at least a few NGOs targeting the problem. But like a former volunteer said, "I went to Nepal to work on woman's rights. But all the women wanted to talk about was their crops. They didn't want to talk about women's rights, they wanted to make sure they had enough food to eat." And I don't blame them.

I find out about my site on Thanksgiving day. Lord knows where I'll end up. Next week we travel throughout the country to visit the sites of current volunteers. It's a reminder of how very temporary this training is.

My old friend Jamie talked about seeing a For Sale sign on my house's front lawn in Sacramento. Whoa.