Earth Day Celebration Part 1. April 12, 2010

So, Monday was day one of our Earth Day celebrations in Asfalou. As planned, the six of us plus Saïd walked to the school at 9am to meet the students, teachers, women’s group, and olive farmers’ association for a village trash pick-up. The schoolyard was empty except 5 young boys, who we assumed were there not to pick up trash but just out of curiosity as to what we were doing there. The two school teachers had made us believe on Friday morning that all the students would be there, along with the Zituna (olive tree association) men, and the women’s group. We came equipped with about 20 empty cement sacks and a poster displaying what trash items are ok to burn, and what should be buried instead. We’d drawn items such as sardine cans, plastic bottles, broken glass, and aluminum as non-burnable, and then cloth, paper, and cardboard as burnable.

The school director soon arrived from Ouarzazate, and my host dad Brahim came too. The director said the village was apparently not excited about this activity, unfortunately. The school only has class in the afternoon on Monday, which is why the schoolyard was empty. But, by 9:30, 3 more Zituna men arrived and about 25 kids appeared with gloves and rakes and shovels. Brahim and the school director were invaluable in helping us instruct the kids. We went over our poster, which had Arabic translations for our drawings, then we all spread out. A little squabble of 10 year old girls followed me. They’ve somehow decided I am their favorite trainee and whenever we go to the school or to meet with the women’s group, they appear at my side and fight one another on who gets to stand next to me and hold my hand. It was quite sweet at first, but it’s gotten a bit stifling at times. Regardless, the children here are adorable. We spent over an hour around the village collecting trash. More children showed up with shovels and wheelbarrows. It was quite an undertaking. We filled our bags and went to dump them in a big hole at the foot of the mountain behind the school. We each collected several bags full of rubbish, and probably the most unpleasant part was picking up used diapers. The stench at times was nauseating. There are a LOT of diapers.

The women’s group didn’t show up at the school until we were nearly done with the trash collection. They didn’t seem ready to collect trash but Zahara organized the group and sent them to a different side of the village to do their own trash pickup. We buried all the trash and concluded our efforts with tea and tajine at the school provided by my host family. It wound up being a pretty successful day. I think the fact that villagers saw us Americans and the school director (who doesn’t even live here) getting dirty collecting their trash (and diapers) hopefully made a decent impact.