Sunday 10 January 2010

The ever present plastic bottle. And the Nappy

So today, a lot of my rellies and I went to Vilingili - the plan was that we would go for a swim, have brekkie and come back to Male'. However, life being what it is and due to the fact that things rarely go to plan, this didn't happen.

When we got to Vilingili, the first thing we noticed was how disgusting the beach was. Plastic bottles, some filled with unidentifiable yellow fluid (Not taking bets on what this was) lay strewn across the beach. Underneath trees lay the remnants of Fridays picnickers. Half eaten 'bai parcels' and helembelihui mingled with the ubiquitous supari packet. And the beach's crowning glory: Used diapers filled with shit, not even buried in the sand and floating in the sea.


We were so disgusted. We couldn't even get ourselves to put our things down. Luckily for us (and rather unfortunately for him), a guy from the island office walked past. One of my cousins knew him and went and talked to him. 10 minutes later, the guy came back with a wheel barrow, 2 rakes and a dustpan. All 18 of us got to work. The little ones picked up empty wrappers, while the rest of us targeted the bottles and nappies.

All in all, it took us 1/2 an hour to clean up that entire stretch of beach, yknow the one that starts near the jetty and ends near the police koshi side.

And just as we picked up the last water bottle, a group of giggly teen girls walked past, taking turns to swig water from a plastic bottle, and uncaring just threw it down near our feet.

I nearly yelled at them. My cousin gave me a warning look. And then he politely told them to take their shit with them.

I don't understand how people can just dump rubbish everywhere.

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