Posted by Pinky.
I never thought I would write a diary entry about rubbish collection but here it is.
Here in my friend’s neighborhood, when you get this plastic pouch (below) in your mailbox, it means it’s your turn to clean up the community trash collection area. Every house in the neighborhood takes turns cleaning up and today it was our turn. The yellow armband thing is to wear so that you can feel like you are doing official business while you sweep up.
This is where everybody in the neighborhood puts their trash. You write your family's name on each of your trashbags.
The (tiny) rubbish truck shows up promptly at 8am and two (friendly) rubbish guys get out of the truck and start throwing the bags of garbage into the back of their truck. They’re super fast - the whole thing takes less than a minute.
The bags are literally _flying_ into the truck!
They’re also super neat - here Rubbish Man #2 notices a small, stray piece of rubbish on the ground...
...and then he reaches down to pick it up?!? Wowwow! This really is not the U.S.!
After they drive away Mugi and I sweep up, although in reality there wasn’t much rubbish around so basically we just collected a bunch of leaves and put it in a tiny bag. Not hard work.
Done!
The whole experience reminded me a little of how when I was in kitten school we had to clean up the cafeteria after lunch, clean our own classrooms & bathrooms, and so on. I wonder how come in the U.S. this kind of shared-cleaning duties stops when we become adults?
Anyway, I kind of enjoyed rubbish day.
Take care,
pinky