“Salem School Recycles!” Fun Day

Pictures paint 1,000 words- Here they are…

 

 

 

 

                  “Prepping"

Grade 3, the “Hot Steppaz” sang their “reduce, reuse, recycle" song

Probably asking them something like “How long does a bottle take to decay?”

Lining up to paint bins!

Our story made the news too! Starts about 10 minutes into the broadcast! Thanks CVM, Sandals Earth Guard, Sandals Foundation and Plastic Recyclers of Jamaica!

http://www.cvmtv.com/videos_1.php?id=1275&section=watch

Next day: May 23, Labour Day

^ This man also painted the words on the recycle bins (I did the symbols)

I painted the small words at the bottom

Must…Stay…Positive…

So it just so happens that 48 hours before the Recycling Fun Day that I’ve been planning for two months, I deduced that my computer had a virus when my e-reader was swiped clean and was told that school was not, in fact, keeping on Wednesday. 48 hours from now. The day of (my) the Fun Day.

“Will teachers still be coming? Will as many students come? What about keeping the start time organized? How many people are actually helping me with this? God I hope there’s music and minimal chaos and- shit! what if it rains?”

…Yessah, for those big reasons and ~10 smaller reasons, I’d love to complain right about now and I did my complaining to my mother before writing this post (thanks mom!) so I choose not to subject you, dear reader, to the nit- picky, woe-is-me self that lurks under the surface. I write of course to tell about about the “ah-hah!” moment.

In an ideal world, this is a fun day that attracts parents to cheer on their children, learn the valuable lesson that the students have been learning about for the past 4 weeks and see something their children are doing, academically. Last week I spent about 2/3 of the school day at the school (the other third preoccupied by walking there and back). I taught a version of a “reduce, reuse, recycle” lesson to every classroom and gave them coloring sheets with the words “I Recycle Because…” and a blank line. The pictures were of the recycle logo with the 3 R’s written on it. At the Recycling Fun Day, a secondary competition will see who’s picture (and reason for recycling) wins. My committee will tape these pictures all over the CDC Office as decoration.

In an ideal world, school keeps on Wednesday, I’m currently still very into the book I was reading and people come to meetings I hold. Meaning this, my friends, is not an ideal world. Yeah, freaked me out too.

So I had a minor freak-out moment and, unfortunately, I bet money I’ll have at least 10 more before Wednesday. The nature of the beast and all that, but as I sat in my kitchen listening to music and going over the coloring sheets, I thought of my ideal situation, of the parents looking at the office walls, proud of their children, and I remembered my elementary school experience.

My public school memories of parent teacher nights were always flooded with excitement because our arts and crafts would be on display. My parents would come home telling me how much they loved my project or my poem and I would feel proud and thusly empowered. This is not a feeling I believe my students have very often as praise does not flow easy in the Jamaican household. But I still want my students to feel that kind of pride for their work. And I want the students who didn’t try to see what it looks like when you do.

And there you have it, the thing I’ll be talking about when I mutter “It’ll be ok, it’ll be ok, it’ll be ok…” over and over to myself tomorrow, and Wednesday. The fact is that the school where I work does not create an environment where accomplishments are openly shared with parents, or among the students. If students come to this thing, which I highly suspect they will regardless of school being open, they will be able to see their works of art displayed in a public setting. They might point and show a friend: “that’s my one!” or they may ask to have it taken down, childishly embarrassed, fishing for praise. Which I will give, where it’s warranted.

Here’s the positive spin in a nutshell: I’m throwing a party for a group of kids who have been enthusiastic, dedicated and open to learning, making them feel accomplished, proud and empowered. Ok, I can be satisfied with that. 

Lessons Learned

In my mind, the recycling project has three main audiences: Students, Shopkeepers/Business owners and the wider public of the community. Knowing that most ideas are the most successful seeds if planted in children, I started with the school-wide bottle collecting competition. Students are competing by grade to see which class can collect the most bottles, and the winning class will be determined at a celebratory recycling Fun Day on May 22nd. The class will win the price the bottles are sold for and many classes are already planning field trips to the beach.

This tactic already feels successful; Beeston Spring has never looked cleaner as the kids comb from hill to gully, from yard to shop searching for bottles. The adults and teens of the community have been watching the school picknie going at it, some perplexed and some satisfied- and I fill them in when they ask: “Wuh yuh mek mi picknie dem do?”.

The next audience to tackle then, my mind assumes, would be the shopkeepers. So I organized a date with my friend at Plastic Recyclers of Jamaica and he agreed to come have a business discussion with our shopkeepers regarding bottle exchange rates, practices and overall recycling education. I made invitations and hand delivered them to most every shopkeeper in the community, explaining the who, what, when and why and answering questions/ educating. I got phone numbers from every person I talked to so that I could send them a reminder text message and I scheduled the meeting tactfully, in the morning, before many of the shops open.

My mind felt good, everyone seemed interested and most people asked questions. Everyone gave me their cell number. I sent a reminder text the evening before the meeting with no problems and in the morning I woke early to sweep the veranda of the meeting place. Meeting time was ten and I sent a second reminder text at 10:30 when not a soul had shown up… no big deal, it’s Jamaica time… 10:35…10:45…11am…still no one. Plastic Recyclers Man (PRM) arrives ten after eleven and my mind is worried, embarrassed and livid- this is the part where I wish I was better at hiding my feelings. Showing disappointment so poignant and being (almost) 24 years old is kind of like that year when you were 7 and you thought for sure you were getting a pony for your birthday. Eliciting “you’re too young to understand reality” responses which, are of course, condescending in nature and not particularly uplifting.

Everyone has this experience, especially in the Peace Corps, call it a coincidence, Murphy’s Law, the nature of development work, whatever. Chances are if you want to make a difference there will be a moment while you do it that you think “WHY do I even bother?” It’s during those times that a supportive project team is imperative. With the arrival of PRM my project team became twice as helpful.

I was in no mood to be a happy and supportive community member at this point, but I knew the only other option was to actually go to every shop and talk to them individually. PRM  brought several sandwich bags of shredded bottles and a football jersey to draw the line between the raw and final products, and to explain his role in the process. After going to the first shop, I realized that perhaps this was even a more effective method as community members were around while we gave our shpiel and were so informed of the project and its benefits. I watched PRM give his rap, and had it memorized by the end of the day, and he left me with a shredded bag of bottles. Now I have ammo for the PTA meeting today where I get to explain to everyone “Wuh mi mek ee picknie dem do.” and more importantly, WHY.

So it turns out that seemingly major failures can, in actuality, become a generally regarded success. A lesson learned, life, thanks again.

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answer to last post’s question:

“Today Is A Happy Mango Day”

After feeling the cool breeze from the steely dark rain clouds moving slowly around the perimeter of Beeston Spring, I went outside to take some pictures of a brightly contrasted mango tree in the yard. Circling to the back I came upon him fervently collecting the fruits under the tallest common mango saying “I never came out this morning, I could have carried these to mummy!” As we collected from the ground, they fell from the canopy, some half eaten by birds, some perfectly intact. Silence, ruffled feathers, thump, silence, silence, thump and a bright yellow streak falls by my periphery. It may not have rained water, but it seems to be raining mango. He bends in the tall grass with an armful of the sweet, warm fruit: “Today is a happy mango day” he says excitedly to no one in particular.

~The red leaves in the above tree are “springing”, they are new and they will mature to the same green on the left side.

 

* Who can find the second Ball Plate in the breadfruit tree?*