One PCV's trash...

One of the things that has been hardest for me to get used to in Ghana is my utter lack of privacy compared to what I was used to at home. One of the weirdest ways that this lack of privacy manifests itself? People dig through my trash.

There is no garbage man in Ghana who comes around weekly to collect waste. In my community, there aren't even garbage cans. A few people burn their trash, but most (including me) throw their garbage into a specific spot in the bush which has more or less been designated a community dump. It actually works much better in my community than it does in many others; there is very little trash scattered around the village.

This is a little stream in Ho, my market town. It smells about like it looks. Luckily, my community is nothing like this.

However. The day after I threw away my first bag of trash, I was stunned to see kids running around town playing with things that I had thrown away. An empty floss dispenser, bits of paper, a piece of a broken shoe: every one had found a piece of trash to play with. I even saw a little girl who had turned an (unused!) tampon applicator into a sort of whistle.

Honestly, I felt very violated at first. For months after that, when I had to throw things out, I would try to time my trips to the bush when no one was watching. Obviously, this was before I had gotten used to the idea that I can't even sneeze without people noticing. Nothing I do goes unwatched. It didn't matter how deep into the bush I went, the kids would follow and find my trash and go through it. I asked a couple of parents if they could talk to their kids for me, but when I explained the situation, they were bemused by my concern. I must have seemed completely irrational to be so concerned about the fate of objects that I clearly wasn't interested in keeping.

So I gave up. Now, I give my trash directly to the kids. An older kid usually takes it and divvies it up to make sure everyone gets at least one of the "good" pieces of trash. I still throw my food waste to the goats, but all the plastic and paper that I generate stays in the community.

And while it still feels a little weird, it also is kind of cool. At its core, this is the original recycling. Without someone appointed to take care of trash, the community has taken matters into its own hands and found creative uses for all these little bits of plastic. I admire how the kids can turn anything into a toy, and I admire how the adults can find uses for things that I was totally done with. This is part of what keeps our community clean.

But to get to the point where I feel this way, I have had to change some of my expectations and learn to be okay with people knowing a little more about me than I might prefer then to know. And honestly, does it really violate my privacy if people know that I am throwing out empty tubes of toothpaste or used up toothbrushes? Not particularly.

My trash is someone else's...not treasure, exactly. But it's someone's idea of a good time. And that's just dandy.