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Changing Habits

By Shreena Patel '05

Upon arriving in India for the first time, I was immediately struck by the amount of garbage lying in the streets. This sense of (visual and olfactory overload) shock has not subsided on subsequent trips. From the moment I step off the plane my line of vision is drawn to the various piles of garbage lying around and I find myself taking note of potential garbage infractions to see where the trash actually ends up. I would get increasingly disturbed by the practice of throwing garbage in the streets because I felt it was something that should be so easy to fix: put the garbage in the garbage can. I also began to realize, however, that it is not such a simple issue because much of the time there are no garbage cans outside and this was basically a cultural issue. People have grown up with this practice and therefore do not necessarily think twice about it. For this reason, I never felt comfortable commenting on or pointing out the practice, though I could give countless reasons why it was hazardous. As such, I watched in silence as a relative of mine threw a bag full of garbage from our recent snacking out of the car window. The best I could do was to tuck mine away in my bag before they could get to it. I felt like a hypocrite by keeping quiet, but I worried that by making any comment I would be perceived as the high-and-mighty girl from America who thinks she can fix all India’s problems.

Throughout the Indicorps orientation, the issue of garbage in the streets came up repeatedly. Staying in a sanitation institute further highlighted the problem, as we would walk out of the gates of a spotless campus to be confronted by scores of paan wrappers strewn about. Every time we set foot in Ahmedabad or even Sughad village, I would find myself constantly looking down at the ground to avoid stepping in a trash pile rather than taking in my actual surroundings. During the Lucid Dreams exercise, my group joined two young girls who were rag pickers and helped them collect paper and wood scraps from the streets. This exercise forced me to focus even more on the garbage and recognize just how pervasive it really is. It also made me more watchful for the source of the trash, such as the college student I saw who ripped up a stack of paper and then blew on it to send the many scraps floating to the ground like confetti. As I picked up this particular student’s mess, I felt his eyes on me wondering what on earth this girl is doing. Again I said nothing and just hoped that the ridiculous sight of three women picking up trash in the streets would knock some sense into them. I even started getting somewhat frustrated with the rag pickers themselves. Though they were inadvertently alleviating the trash problem somewhat by collecting what was valuable to them, they would only take some scraps of paper and leave others of the same kind behind and they would end up spilling paper from their bags as they walked from site to site. In the process of clearing some trash, they would spread it around.

When I came to Bhavnagar, I was pleased to see that overall there is significantly less trash lying around than in Ahmedabad. I still found, though, that people have the mentality of throwing garbage in the streets. One day I got ice cream with a co-worker and started looking for a place to throw out the wrapper. The other girl motioned for us to go outside, and I naively thought she was leading us to a trashcan since there was not one indoors. Instead, she simply threw the stick and wrapper in the street and tried to compel me to do the same. She even offered to take my wrapper and throw it on the ground for me; she obviously did not understand my reluctance to discard the wrapper in the street. I ultimately resorted to my previous tactic of wrapping up the sticky mess and keeping it in my bag to later throw away in the office, although this time I had been able to say my piece a little. I thought that hopefully this would at least be a step toward convincing others to use garbage cans. I continued trying to lead by example when I saw people at work stretching to throw a crumpled ball of paper out of the window, rather than toss it into the dustbin sitting right next to them.

A week or two into my stay in Bhavnagar, I participated in a children’s meetings led by my NGO, after which everyone received a piece of candy. Many of the children starting throwing the wrappers out of the window, but I was pleased to find that the coordinator reprimanded them and made sure to put out a trash can for them to use. Unfortunately, many continued to throw things out of the window, but I was still glad that the NGO was making some effort to instill the value of using dustbins. I subsequently attended another NGO program where nearly 200 children were in attendance, and again we passed out candy at the end. Once the storm of children had cleared, I looked around to find that the previously pristine campus was now covered in wrappers. I felt both frustrated with the children who had no regard for their surroundings, but also with my NGO for allowing these situations to occur. They had not provided a designated dustbin, nor did they instruct the children to dispose of the wrappers appropriately. It felt ashamed for being a part of this program that had come into this spotless school campus as guests and left behind a large mess. Again, I felt helpless in being able to do something. The damage had been done and the main culprits had returned to their homes; and I still worried any comment I made to the staff might be taken the wrong way.

A similar situation occurred a few days later at one of the NGO’s community center programs. There were about 20 children and that evening’s activity was to make stars by cutting sheets of paper. My thoughts quickly went to the potential mess this activity might be create, but the children were all sitting on a large tarp and the paper was generally being contained there. At the end of the 2-hour session, however, after many of the children had left, I looked around to find paper strewn around the entire field. I felt the same sense of embarrassment that I had felt at the school and given the extent of the garbage on this occasion, I felt I could no longer keep quiet. Though, upon surveying the expansive field peppered with small scraps of paper, I felt somewhat overwhelmed. I pulled aside one of the program leaders and pleaded that we must do something about the mess. He was surprisingly agreeable and we rounded up the few children that were left and asked them to help us figure out how to clear up the mess. The children responded immediately and ran around haphazardly collecting all the scraps. Given the team effort, it actually did not take long to clear and all the scraps were put into a pile on the edge of the field. This was not my ideal solution, but I decided that the act of cleaning up at all was enough of a success.

A week or so later I went to another community program with a different group of children where the activity was to make hats out of newspaper. Though I was not able to see whether the paper-picking exercise had made a lasting impression on the children from the previous star activity, I noticed that the program leader made sure to tell the children beforehand to keep the newspaper on the tarp. He was also vigilant about piling up the unused scraps and keeping them in order so that they would not fly away. The children also followed suit and made sure to add their scraps to the pile. When the program ended, all the newspaper was contained in one area and the scraps were taken back to the office to be disposed of. I was extremely pleased with this result not only because we kept the area clean, but also because I realized that by changing the habits of the program leader the concept of proper trash disposal had reached more children than if I had just focused on the children. While I still plan to instruct the children otherwise if I see them throwing garbage in the streets, I now also have a plan to slowly convince the other NGO staff members to change their ways. Hopefully they will then be more careful about passing this on to the children they work with.

Did You know?

Indicorps offers a variety of programs and opportunities that encourage leadership and civic engagement. While the fellowship focuses on empowering people willing to do whatever it takes to affect change, we also have local volunteer programs in India, an established internship program, an emerging domestic program, an effort to engage late-careers seniors in development, an online volunteer opportunity site, and more....

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See images by Kajal Patel, a talented UK-based photographer, that are part of an Indicorps project to capture the journey of India's people. Her work particularly focused on widows and the nature of the rag-picking industry in Gujarat's largest slum.

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Learn about the Indicorps / SAATH partnership, started by Indicorps intern Ajlai Basu, that has lead to Aasma - a volunteer-driven school for street children near the Indicorps office in Gujarat.

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The next fellowship applications are available for fellowship classes starting August 2008 and January 2009. To apply, click here.

Inspiration

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

- Lila Watson