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First World Trash on Third World Shores


A week ago this was clean. See the wooden planks? That is a little bridge over a tidal creek and the ocean is to your left. High tides brought this trash in over just a few days. What a difficult challenge for people with few resources! 

Today was garbage pick-up day. I am happy because I walked through the village and saw guys with wheel barrows collecting the big black trash bags from the houses. It means there is progress. A few months ago there was no trash pick-up. Nowhere for the garbage to even go. Now it is shipped by small boats to a land fill on another island. But how are these people supposed to keep up when they have to deal with this? And who is going to pay to remove all the extra bags of trash this will be when it eventually gets picked up? 

I have been helping people when I can over the years, and I have always been a bit of a hippy myself, into organic food and natural living and caring for this lovely planet. But I never realized how much environmental issues are impacting the poor in the world until this week. 

These islands carry a high rate of birth defects. I see it in the faces of so many children. The islands also carry dengue fever and other serious health problems. I talked to a young man today who has a skin disease I can barely even talk about. His hands are so scared he has trouble moving them. 

The garbage we are producing in first world countries is ending up on the shores of third world countries and the people there are paying a high price for our throw-away style of living. Its one thing to think about the water we are polluting. It is quite another to sit on a street corner and talk with a young man who can't work and has no way to support himself and not enough money to buy soap to wash his clothes to cover his damaged skin because he is so ill from the refuse.

My heart goes out to these people. I know I can't fix the problem. But I am thankful that I becoming more aware of it and of how everything is connected. 

My wish is that we could stop with agendas that assuage our conscience and build our ego and get out of ourselves and SEE who is in front of us. Maybe in that way, little by little we could change our world. 

Love you all,
laura


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