Togo Trash

"The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it." 
~George Kimble

Probably the most surprising thing about Togo to me has been the contrast between this lovely country and beautiful people, with the trash alongside the roads, revealing an area where development work is still left to be done. Maybe with all the other challenges facing them, trash disposal is low on their list of ideas for needed improvements.  There isn’t an ingrained belief in Togo, like there is in America, that “littering is bad,” because in Togo it’s really the only way to dispose of your trash. Compounds are swept clean every day, but afterwards, trash is either thrown on the side of the road, or you can save it for later, when you can go out to the road and burn a whole pile of trash that you have accumulated. The trash will end up on the side of the road, either burned or not.

The smell of burning trash is a scent that you quickly become used to while living here. On my street there are about three burn piles along the side of the road where people dispose of their trash. Every couple of days someone will light the piles on fire and we kind of randomly take turns doing this.

The really disturbing thing isn’t just the environmental problem of having trash everywhere, but also the health hazard facing the animals and small children who like to go and pick through the trash. Kids love to search for anything that they can turn into a toy or just mess around with. The goats and chickens roam through and eat whatever seems appetizing. A volunteer friend of mine told me that once in her village they killed a goat to eat, and when they opened the stomach there were a bunch of small black plastic bags inside. Ewww.  Not good…for the people or the goat.