Litter and Garbage - Leah

One thing I find very disturbing in Arusha is that there is garbage all over the place.  People finish something and just drop it.  There is plastic and broken glass everywhere.  In areas where the population is less and most of the garbage is biodegradable I am sure it isn't as much of a problem but here in Arusha there are so many people and it is modern enough to have a lot of plastic bottles and bags, the problem is bad.

Elizabeth wanted a garbage bag to go clean up in front of the last host families home a few weeks ago and I had to explain to her that some of the garbage could be dangerous.  We were at school last week and we had a can of Pringles to share.  When it was empty one of the girls just took the can and threw it.  Elizabeth was very upset and I told her that she should get it and that even though it is part of what they are all use to that we wouldn't participate.

We talked to James about it and he is upset by it too.  He said it is just so ingrained in the culture that it continues to happen.  Ondo and Judy are working on a program.  If they can start at New Life School and teach the kids to have pride in what they have, they are hoping in generations to come it will become more and more normal to not just toss everything. I hope that they can because it is a beautiful country and worry that if they let this go on too long there won't be any turning back.

Garbage in the gutters.  The gutters here are these concrete ditches.  Some have bars on them and some have small pieces of cement to allow you to go over them.  Everything lands in these. To be fair, there are some people whose job is to sweep these out and they burn all the debris.

This is next to a store that sells furniture.  All packing material just gets tossed in the alley.

Side of the road - Garbage is everywhere.

Some students decided after hours to open up the needles and see how they were made and left the garbage just on the ground.  I am really hoping that they were clean needles.