Day 26: Garbage man for a day

Instead of sleeping in, the alarm clock rang again today at 6.20 AM ... After breakfast, Jakob drove to Okaue to bring spare parts for a tractor. I went with 4 other workers to the roadside of the main road. The grass there will be cut in the next few days and dried into hay. However, in order for the baler to pass through, the area needs to be prepared. While one of the workers drove a small tractor with a trailer at a walking speed, we walked in a line along the roadside and cleared away large stones and thorn bushes and picked up garbage. I still can't believe how many cans, plastic bottles, old tires, used diapers, and other junk we were able to unearth from the tall grass. How can such an impressive and diverse nature like the one in Namibia be destroyed and contaminated like this. By noon, we had walked one direction (just under 3 km) and collected half a trailer full of garbage.

Disgusting!!!

In the afternoon, we continued with familiar work, this time in the opposite direction. Here too, a similar sad picture presented itself. Armed with a bag and a stick, I fished out huge amounts of garbage from the roadside ditch. Some Namibian car/truck drivers sometimes do their business in bottles or bags and throw them into nature. The irony here is that these remnants would rot or seep naturally without a plastic wrapper. But with the wonder bags made of plastic, they preserve them forever ... simply disgusting.

By 5.00 PM, it should be done, the ditch in the opposite direction was free of garbage, only a few stones and bushes still need to be moved to the side tomorrow. The workers will take care of that without me, because Jakob and I will return to the role of the mobile supermarket tomorrow.

After a hot shower (no problem if you don't forget to fire up the boiler), everyone except Jens, who had to return to the boarding school this morning, gathered for dinner. I set curfew at 9.30 PM and went to bed.