Volcano Trash Pickup

Last night, I bid my final farewells to Rachel. Alas, her husband came to Xela and swept her away. As our last dinner, we ventured out and tried more street food. Despite my hike the next day, I tried a pupusa, an El Salvadorian flattened hot pocket. It had pork skin inside and my stomach tolerated it well.

Today, I took a volunteer hike up a volcano to pick up trash. I had told everyone to meet at 4am at the house, but I don´t think everyone really believed me when I said that and so we lost a couple cats that morning. We needed to get to the top of the volcano early in order to see the active volcano, Santihuaguito, nearby erupt before the clouds covered the view. We arrived near the edge of the volcano at 5:30am and 2 dogs joined us. I think they thought I had rabies and so they kept their distance, but still hiked with us.

I love the idea of hiking up a volcano and how I feel after such a great workout, but I invariably have a hard time with the execution part. I am a really slow hiker up hills. The first hour was okay, the second hour sucked, the third hour was even worse, the fourth hour I thought I would die, and halfway through the fifth hour, I finally made it up. I kept telling myself, "I think I can, I think I can" and sure enough, I did. Thank God for children´s books.

At the top, before collapsing for a half hour nap, I watched Santihuaguito erupt. It boiled up and then a huge mist of volcanic stuff, very technical term, flew up into the air and then I profoundly fell asleep.

After my nap, I picked up trash. I felt like I was on an Easter egg hunt, but the goodies were not edible. At some point, I changed my strategy from picking up everything in sight to picking up plastic bottles, tin cans and batteries since the trash overwhelmed the volcano and I did not have the bandwidth to pick up everything. I had to upgrade my bags to the big Glad size ones, and in the end, we picked up about 50 bags worth.

The trek down proved just as difficult because the bags weighed a ton. We definitely cleaned up a lot, and made a dent in the trash scene. Do I feel like I made a difference? I feel like I received an incredible workout and made a small effort to protect the natural beauty of this country. However, I know that the volcano will be full of trash again shortly because I have not changed the mindset or culture of the people here.

It is readily accepted to throw trash out of the windows of buses or onto the streets as people walk by. Many people have enough on their mind trying to find enough food for the family let alone to have to worry about the environment and their impact on it. Because of this issue, at the clinic, we teach the kids about the importance of putting trash into a trash container and how trash impacts their community and environment. We start teaching them these concepts early in the hopes that the message might change their behavior and therefore future generations´ behavior.

Sadly, when I got back on the bus back to the city, I watched as the bus driver threw a tin can out of his bus and onto the street. I don´t expect to change or save the world on my trip, but hopefully I will inspire others back home to take the time to positively impact their community and environment in sustainable ways.