Litter and life

Sometimes it feels like the problems in the world are so great, so vast, so beyond me, that there isn't a damn thing I can do to make a dent in the situation.

I feel like that all of the time.

These things are systemic and institutionalized.  

They're bigger than I am. They're stronger than I am. 

They mock my efforts and attempts at reversing what they have set into motion.

It makes me feel so small, so insignificant. 

One of the best examples I can think of is the problem of litter.  

It's a problem in Washington Heights, in that it makes our streets ugly and lowers the overall perception of the neighborhood.  In Nairobi, though, it's a way of life.  

Unless you're in the middle of the city you aren't going to find a trash can on the corner of the street. There isn't a system for waste removal on public roads beyond the most traversed neighborhoods of the city, so every other neighborhood drops their trash where it is convenient.  The streets are lined with garbage. 

I'm being literal. The streets are literally lined with garbage. 

I'm staying in a slum in Mathare where I can't see the ground where I'm walking because a layer of plastic separates me from the sewage beneath it. 

There are sections of the street set aside where people toss their garbage, should they choose to collect it in a bag to begin with. 

Tiny piles of trash burn along the edges of the walking paths, a futile attempt to eradicate the litter that can't be contained in one area.

I've lived here for the past two weeks.  I've collected my trash in a tiny plastic bag and I've given it to the woman that takes it out twice a week.  I haven't thought much about it beyond that.  I'm not throwing it out of the window, so it feels like I'm doing the right thing.  

And then it dawned on me - my trash is going the same place everyone else's trash is going.   It's part of the pile on the road. 

I can ignorantly collect it and pass it off in a sealed bag, but it's all going to the same pile. 

I don't throw my waste out of the window, so I assume that I'm not littering.  

It's not that easy. 

Unless I collect my own trash and take it to a public waste can, I might as well pitch it out of the window. It's the same exact result. 

I can convince myself that I'm doing my part by gathering my waste in a bag, and I might sleep more soundly at night because of it, but it's just ignorance that lets me rest. 

The truth is that there is so much more than I'm responsible for, so much more that I need to be aware of in order to actually be a part of the solution. 

Anything less is the same as adding to the piles of trash that make me hold my breath when I walk the streets. 

These things are systemic and institutionalized.  

It's bigger than trash.  It's life.

If I don't see the big picture and my role in it, I'm contributing to the problem. 

My work in the world can't end with a tidy bag of my own waste and a clean conscience because I don't openly throw it on the road. My work needs to look at developing systems that address the core issues, not just making sure that I put some volunteer time in.  My work needs to be about sustainable programming that meets the needs of the community, not just teaching a class for a week or two.  Volunteering might help me sleep at night, but the pile of trash is growing and I see my wrappers on the street.  

I might not be able to take care of these problems.  They might always be bigger than I am. They might always be stronger. 

But If I can see them for what they are then I can work to disarm them.

And I sure as hell won't convince myself that I've done something good for the world in order to get a better night of sleep when all I've done was litter in a different way than my neighbors.  

New eyes

The first time that I saw poverty, I mean true poverty, the kind of poverty that takes the air out of your lungs, was when I went to the Dominican Republic in 2012.  The kind of poverty where hungry, naked, thirsty, and roofless are accepted normals for daily life.  The kind of poverty that hasn't begun to think about infrastructure, waste disposal, or sanitary needs because they are all further below on the hierarchy of needs - not enough mental and emotional space to give to anything but meeting the most basic survival needs.

I remember pulling up to the Bateye and seeing tiny people waiting for our arrival, waiting for the education we had come to provide.  Some without shoes.  Some without clothing.  All with empty stomachs. 

It put my world on pause.  I had to create space to process.  I had to figure some things out. 

A month later, after I had been in that exact environment for a month, I expected to see the very things that had initially been so jarring. 

I don't mean to suggest that I was desensitized to abject poverty.  My heart still bled at the sight of naked babies sleeping on a cement floor, children eating rationed spoonfuls of rice for entire meals, hair that had turned orange from a lack of proper nutrients, and humans living as slaves right before my eyes. All of that still pricked my heart, but it didn't cause such pause in my world as to alter my entire state of being.

From that time on, I had a better framework for what to expect when traveling to places of crisis and poverty.  Still, every time I saw a new community for the first time I had an initial moment of hesitation at first sight.  The time it takes to process the new information lessens significantly in every new context, but it is always startling at the onset. 

So here I am, living in Mathare, a slum on the eastern edge of Nairobi, working in Kibera, a slum on the city's southern edge.  

Trash covers the ground.  Everywhere.  Layers and layers of garbage blanket the soil.

Houses of mud and corrugated iron define the horizon line. 

Sewage runs congruently with walking paths. You can't imagine the smell. You can't. 

Kids play openly in their environment, wrestling and chasing one another through the trash and sewage.  

It's poverty as I've never seen, besides when I was here the last time. 

I knew what i was going to see and smell and touch and experience. I knew what I was getting into. I knew what to expect. Still, it's shocking to the point of causing pause. 

Every morning when I walk out into the community, I am more and more prepared to see the world that's waiting.

It's adaptation for the purpose of survival, I suppose, because I don't think that I could emotionally function with an openly bleeding heart for such an extended period of time. 

Initially it startles, then I process it, then I prepare myself, then it becomes routine.  

As I reflect on that aspect of my own being, I start to think about my own community. After all, if none of this helps me love my neighborhood better then I have no point being here.  

So I think about New York, about Washington Heights, about my school, and I wonder how I would see all of those places with new eyes, with eyes that haven't processed the extreme poverty that I actually have been desensitized to.  

I wonder what you would see in my world. 

Would it startle you?  Would you notice all that I look passed on a daily basis?  Would your heart bleed where mine has mended itself?

I don't know.  

Ten years of adaptation can alter a person's framework. 

Having new eyes every summer reminds me that it's not too late to see the world again, to refocus my vision.

There's a fine line between the kind of empathy that promotes solidarity and the kind that leads to emotional breakdown, so I want to make sure that I am deliberate. Always deliberate. 

But I think that it might be healthy to be shocked again, to feel the need for pause in the city that I love so dearly.  

New eyes.  

It's so clear when it's new.  So clear that I can't help but think of how foggy my vision must be. 

I guess there are some things that I never want to get used to seeing.