Tuesday 2 June 2009

Watching the bin men...

This morning Joshua and I were sitting by a window on deck 5 and started watching the bin men outside on the dock. We have big grey bins lined up on the dock and every now and then a bin lorry comes and empties them. It struck me initially that it was actually just like a bin lorry would be at home, it didn't look as if it belonged in the dark ages like the fire engines we spot sometimes and for a minute there it seemed like we could have been back home watching the bin men (as you do when you have small boys who like such things). The difference was that they were taking rather a long time, bin men back home don't really ever stop, they just put the rubbish in and keep going. After watching for a bit longer we realised that the men were actually going through every bag, opening them up with their bare hands, and removing certain random items that were considered worthy of keeping. It was then that I realised that we were watching a bin lorry in Africa which is maybe a little different to home. It is quite emotive when you stop and think of the poverty that is behind people searching through my bags of rubbish (containing mainly mango skins, milk cartons and NAPPIES).

Sarah

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

our bin men have been this morning as you say running past not giving a thought to what of value could be in the bags(although probably not ours!)i felt overwhelmed with the sadness of what you pointed out.mumx