I actually created an epic photo video from the summertime to compensate for the vast drought of posts here for four months, and after hours and hours editing that masterpiece, YouTube nixed it because it detected the contents I used regarding copyrighted music. Not like I would be trying to make money off it, just a digital scrapbook with sound, that's all. I had given all the props right there on the video to each artist, and I even tried to make my blog private and YouTube was still all "no way, you filthy, rotten music stealer." I totally get it, I really do love musicians, and value their art and craft, and really do have respect for their rights and all that. But COME ON!!! That video was going to be the coolest thing since sporks, man! So, currently it's vaulted in my computer, and hopefully I can alter it and share it here one day. With uber cool reggae music nonetheless.
In the meantime, I thought I had better get back on the saddle with this blog and continue to chronicle the events of my family so one day my boys can read it and (hopefully) appreciate their childhood through my eyes, and draw new insights into adulthood and parenthood through my words and experiences. We're still seeking miracles here, and it's still very messy. So the show must go on.
Today was an average day where we took Papa to work and then rushed home to eat breakfast then dive into school. And as we were trying to back into our driveway to get it all started, the garbage truck was blocking our route. As my right turn blinker ticked away, we watched that giant truck extend an arm with perfect agility and clasp with two robot fingers onto our garbage can. Somehow, for some reason, it was hypnotic, and we three each absorbed the slow, mechanical movements as it heaved the garbage off the roadside and hold it over the massive hole on it's top, releasing a week's worth of diapers, cat litter, laundry lint, and other unspeakably nasty things dismissed in a family's trash. And it occurred to me that the man driving the truck was good at his job, and I waved at him, as did the boys, as he drove down the block with a kind smile on his burly face.
I couldn't help but smile as well, and I suddenly wanted to hug that man.
What if we didn't have garbage trucks? I know what that looks like first hand. When we were in Senegal 5 years ago, we were mesmerized by the raw and rustic beautiful of sub-Saharan Africa. But the population isn't capable of affording food or medicine or clean water to drink and wash babies in, let alone the luxury of a sanitation department to collect and dispose of waste. And the land was decimated by not only poverty but filth as well. And even way out in the bush, far from the cities with their weak but running sanitation efforts, the beautiful, iconic African landscape was ruined by trash. Plastic sacks wrapped around and hung from ancient baobab trees, and soda bottles or cans lay where they were dropped or where the wind had swept them. Little bits of cellophane fluttered like butterflies from branches of acacia trees, and donkeys lumbered around with plastic wrapped around their legs or suctioned to their mouths as they tried to graze around it.
 |
| Somewhere between Baba Garage and Theis, Senegal in 2009: I took this shot from the van as we left the villages, the long road into the city, the airport, and home. Sadly the trash litters the bush as far as the eye can see. |
And I'm not saying this with any elitist Christian pity, or ugly American arrogance. It's only an observation, a contrast of cultures and circumstances. I mention Senegal because today I wanted to hug my garbage truck driver, I wanted to yank him out of that odoriferous beast with its didactylous arm, and squeeze the prunes out of him because he did his job well, and he did it with a smile, and a friendly wave at a mom who was anxious to get the long day going, and two little boys who were enchanted by the truck he operated with such ease, for making it look easy, for lifting three dark fingers in a small salute to us, and smiling inside that scruffy beard as he drove our trash away.
What a great moment!
ReplyDelete