A
dust bin full of rotten pap and rice that could have been placed onto
refrigerator and be saved for another day but been thrown to trash until they
rot there. I was fortunate to have met a women whom we stay together at a house
we both renting to. As I was going out the other day to collect some water she
approached me looking keenly to that fully loaded bin. I saw pain in her eyes
and I was not willing to ask if whether she was fine or not until I reach a
point where I was left with no option but ask her if she was fine.
Without
answering my question she went straight to what she wanted to tell me, about
that bin with rotten pap, rice and staff.
She tried to make a distinction between the rich and the poor using the
bin. I found it fascinating how she was able to explain it and believe me, she
was not trying to judge but to tell the world as is. She said that just by
looking at a bin in different houses, you can tell if whether or not people who
live there are rich or poor, just by looking.
Rich people hardly fill up the
bins as compared to poor. What happen is that whatever that can still be saved
and eaten the next day is preserved so that it can be consume the next day. She
said that if pap remained, instead of throwing it away they refrigerate it and
put it on micro wave the next day in order to consume it but poor don’t do
that. As she continue giving me these analogies she said that poor don’t value
the importance of recycling food and that has been their weakest and defining
act about them. Whatever that remained from previous meal belongs to the trash.
That on its own will never emancipate them. It is for this reason that their
bins are taken out for collection every single day. She said “rich don’t do
that”.
