Zimbabwe is a stunning and beautiful country, but that still doesn't change the fact that the streets are the unofficial bin of Zimbabwe. You can find litter pretty much anywhere in Harare, but it becomes really extreme if you got to Dzivara Sekwa, where the access road has colourful paper and plastic lining the street instead of flowers. The problem is that people are too occupied with their considerable short-term problems and don't have the means to get to official dumping sites, not to forget that the rubbish collectors are at best irregular. And somehow they don't really see the rubbish anymore - even I have gotten used to the sight and don't wince anymore every time. Yet, there are places that are disgraceful and also hazardous with infections spreading like crazy. 
One of these unofficial dumps is on Dzikwa land and so on Saturday morning a really big clean up campaign was started.
The whole place was rather gruesome, I only have to mention the two dead dogs we found: one was still relativley well conserved and looking like he would start biting you in a second with his empty eyes, the other one was literally skin and bones and maybe even more scary. Then there was the goat skull I cold-bloodiedly took and packed into a rubbish bag. Also the smell of this decomposing waste, including diapers and rotting cloth, was enough to make me veeery thankful for the mouth cover. We also got gloves and black plastic bags and rakes and shovels, but the best thing was the Compacter(a
truc, which can press the garbage together).
So first things first - I came to the dump and received the task to pick up rusty metall pieces: I had a look at my Flip-Flops and pretty much immediately backtracked to the Shelter to get socks and closed trainers. Best decision in my life, however it still didn't stop my feet from looking like this:
Then I was busy picking up metall cans, electronic chips, iron rods and car pieces! and giving them to the people with the wheel barrows or plastic buckets, who transported them to the Compacter, where they were loaded onto the car and crushed. In between, I also helped a bit with picking up less dangerous garbage, such as plastic, paper, cloth and thousands of other things you have to see or you can't imagine them as they are rather undefinable. Then I decided that we were only picking of the top layer of an endless heap, so I got a shovel and started to get to the bottom of things. Luckily I soon received help from a few Seconday boys, who came with more shovels, a rake to loosen and collect more rubbish. So we with the shovels filled a wheel barrow, then Gibson emptied the wheel barrow, while Takudzwa would loosen and pile up the rubbish with a rake. The whole process was accompanied by jokes, exclamations "He's crazy" and a lot of laughter. But after one and a half hours everybody including me was rather tired and thanks God, we then had a break at the Forestry with Sandwiches and Mazoe(mixed with water in a bucket;)
During our restful break the Compactor was bringing away the first load of rubbish, yet he wasn't back when we were back :( So we all started to prepare with rakes and shovels full wheel barrows and smaller heaps of rubbish on the sides of the road. Then finally after half an hour waiting and a rather impatient Seppo the Compactor finally came and we started to get rid of all the stuff, we had assembled including two tree trunks. Afterwards I had the first time the slightest impression that we had got something done. With the Compactor's help we then managed to at least get the sides of the street cleared. Not that that state of cleanliness even lasted a week.
Personally, I found it exhausting, at times disgusting and deeply gratfiying. My hope is that these children at least will not litter on a daily basis anymore and it was good to see, how it isn't completely impossible to clean up the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment