This is probably because I, along with fellow p'fac Lukas, have been in charge of Unit 2--Urban issues. This has been bigger ordeal than anticipated, from drastic schedule changes at the last minute to the rainy weather just ruining some of our best laid plans.
However, through it all, we are coming out on the other side with a greater understanding and a stronger group of students, I think.
This has involved reading and discussing articles on urbanization in the third world, particularly the Nigerian city of Lagos, as a case study. It has also involved discussions on what it means to be "free", why slums exist, and how people can be empowered to affect change within their communities. After seeing an example of this in the agricultural unit 1 (farmers making the shift to organic), this unit turned much of that upside down.
We started out our home stay experience with a 2 day trip to Kam Baan Noi, a community that was built around the landfill Khon Kaen uses for its waste. In a curious parallel, Khon Kaen sells all of its trash to this landfill which is actually under the jurisdiction of another "district."
For those of you who might not be aware, South Carolina is paid by its neighboring states to store garbage in its landfills. For more info about SC landfills, check here: http://www.scdhec.gov/environment/lwm/recycle/pubs/msw_landfills.pdf
The take away from this unit: find out where your trash goes. Look past the can or the curb, and GO CHECK IT OUT. What you find may or may not shock you. If anyone in Khon Kaen took this same challenge, they would undoubtedly be shocked.
I will preface the following by saying that I have become fairly desensitized to most things these days. Whether it is organizing communities in the rural South to entering a foreign country and going to the slums, it takes a lot to make me step back and say "Holy s***."
I had a moment of that while touring the landfill and living with the community of Kam Baan Noi.
As you can see, the following picture is one of a blood vial. This medical waste is properly disposed of by placing it in pink bags that are then sorted differently and burned to prevent dangerous transmission or contact. However, at the landfill, this was absolutely not followed.
I saw small children, the age of my little cousins, playing with the vials of blood like marbles as they lay strewn across the ground near their parents' workplace. I saw syringes and catheters pulled out of the ground while folks without the proper boots and equipment worked to make a living around them.
With this image fresh in mind, we went in and had an exchange with the villagers. While it takes a lot to make me cry, I was brought to tears when I heard the women of the community describe how their children were bullied in school because their parents work in the landfill. I saw the pain in her eyes as she was asked why she continued to work as a scavenger, despite the dangers: "Because I can't leave my children to work in the city, and I have to provide for them so they can get an education and get a better job than me." While doing this, while working 24 hrs a day, her child is bullied and teased in the one place that might serve as a respite from the rigors of daily life in the landfill.
I found this shocking and devastating, not because it was new information.
I remember being in school and seeing the kids who came to school with old clothes, who smelled bad or didn't fit in. I remember rarely standing up for my peers because of the fear of social rejection I also reckoned with.
We all remember those moments when we had the opportunity to speak up, to say "No" when someone was being bullied or treated poorly because of circumstances outside of their control.
As a child, I didn't understand words like "globalization" and "rural to urban migration." I wouldn't have been able to say why some of my classmates were poor, while others were rich.
Thus, as I quite literally stood on a 40 ft high mountain of trash, I couldn't help but to see this as the end result of consumerism and the globalization of the American ideal of "stuff." The villagers explained that 20 or so years ago, the trash they received and worked with was mostly banana leaves. What changed??
7-11 came, for starters. Chains began popping up all over Thailand. Where did many of these come from?
The United States of America.
Whether or not you agree with capitalism, one must recognize its impact on the rest of the world. America took those TV dinners from the 1950s and sent them across the world in the name of "progress" and "development."
Suddenly money became more important than natural resources and things that can't be measured, such as familial bonds and friendships.
The breakdown of the American community has led to individual pursuit of wealth at the expense of our fellow man. I mean, seriously-- why do we need more money? To buy more stuff? To pay the mortgage? When did money become an end in itself, rather than a means to an end?
One need look no further than your local landfill to see the end result of the cycle we are all a part of. What made me so sad in Thailand was to see the end of American influence on the region. You can say I'm wrong, that's fine.
But then let's talk about why some kids don't get to grow up with a reasonable degree of safety and security. Why health concerns of the poor are put beneath the economic gains of the growing middle class. Why is the pressure on the poor heaviest in economic downturns?
As a friend of mine said, "The poor built the city. The poor clean the city, keep it safe."
But instead of valuing them (not idealizing, which is a different subject entirely), we as humans allow some of our brothers and sisters to be left behind.
Some of you might be thinking "Jeez, you sure are beating a dead horse with the whole 'value of humans' point."
And maybe I am. But when I see it as something that is still ignored, I can't help but continue to ask WHY??
Where did dignity, respect, and love get left behind in the human pursuit of progress? What does progress mean, if it means that some people are left out?
This is not a problem only in Thailand. There were protests in the Upstate of SC because of a proposed landfill. A former president of Wofford College became involved.
We are all a part of the reason why villagers in Kam Baan Noi scavenge. We are all part of the reason landfills are necessary.
If you are a capitalist, then you must reckon with each part of the system. I strongly believe that one cannot be a freedom-loving capitalist and ignore consumerism, landfills, and the effects on disadvantaged communities. Many of our American communities are rotting from neglect and willful ignorance. Yes, I do believe that our ignorance is a choice.
If you can look these folks in the eye and explain to them why they are poor, then I will believe that you are a capitalist. If you cannot do that, then I strongly encourage you to reevaluate your perspective. [And no, I am no Communist.]
I simply want to push everyone to follow their value system to its logical end point. The soy milk I drink everyday here has an impact on someone else, as I found yesterday.
FOLLOW YOUR VALUES and see who you find. See who you speak with.
It might surprise you.
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