Clean up day

I've posted photos of 'the forest' before- a crazy area along the Nile that offers lots of shade, a little green, and no grass. Its dirt. BUT, its shady, and local Sudanese picnic and hang out there. Its nice, for here. Or rather, it could be, if it weren't completely trashed by litter and plastic bags. Its disgusting. We're really talking about massive piles of trash under trees, millions of plastic bags stuck in trees and blowing along the ground. MILLIONS. My photos don't do it justice.A colleague of ours has been working on a project with the eighth grade. As a part of their work, they met with the overseers of this land and arranged a clean-up day for the KAS community. So, this morning, we loaded up 3 buses with students, teachers and parents and spent the morning in the forest. We tackled one small area, attempting to make it into a 'model area', from which people might learn to clean up after themselves. We passed out gloves, trash bags, and everyone got down and dirty.

We also posted some signs about cleaning up.

Its a complicated issue here, as there aren't trash bins available (who would empty them?) and there is a serious lack of education. While I'm sure this area will soon be littered again, it seemed to prove a very valuable lesson for our students. We filled over 120 large trash bags with atleast 1000 lbs of trash. I think many of them will look at plastic bags in a very different way. I know I will!