It's Not Easy Being Green

We run a green household. No, I am not referring to the color of the warthog meat if left out in the sun too long, nor the color my wicker laundry basket turns in the rainy season after sitting full of sweaty clothes for 4 days. I mean green in the environmental sense. We conserve, recycle, and are environmentally aware with the best of them!

Recycling for us does not mean throwing plastics in a big blue tub for the garbage man. Any type of can, plastic, bag or anything that seems REMOTELY useful goes in a pile on the back porch and is taken by our friends. Old magazines and books can be used for entertainment purposes or to wrap medicine or donuts. Our guys LOVE our old AA or AAA batteries. We think they are dead – not giving enough light. They say – wow, when you give us those batteries, they last us for a month. The ones we buy in the market only last for 2 days. It is a LITTLE embarrassing but what to do……

These days, we are dangerously low on toilet paper. The rolls we can buy in country typically last a day – maybe 2 – as long as no one has a runny belly. We got a small supply over Thanksgiving which we need to make last until our teammates return from Conakry. I am fairly certain that my family is VERY tired of me saying – You all REMEMBER how low we are on toilet paper – right? If you blow your nose on a Kleenex, don’t throw it away. Recycle it as toilet paper. By the way – 2 -3 squares is sufficient! I am REALLY hoping we can make it last so that we don’t have to resort to the teakettle of water that our village friends use! I suppose that would be MORE environmentally friendly but I am not sure I can make the sacrifice!

Very little food gets wasted. We are currently finishing up a bag of flour that has a little extra protein in the form of weevils and their larva. It has already been sifted once – now I am resifting it. Leftover chicken bones and broth (from deboning chickens) are highly sought after by my friends. Does your pasta have a few bugs in it? No problem –when you boil it, they float to the top! I did discover some of my pasta was nearly black with bug dust. I put it out on the back porch to throw away and my friend busily put it in a bag to take it home.

Our house is basically run on solar power- an expensive investment up front, but a great source of power here in the African tropics. I can run a bread machine (dough cycle only) and we have lights and I can even plug in my Christmas tree! We do use a generator for a few hours of laundry twice a week. I even have a solar clothes dryer- it strongly resembles a clothesline! :^)

Speaking of laundry, we reuse our water as well. The first wash load gets thrown out, but the rinse water is collected and reused as the wash water for the next load. At the end, the last rinse water is saved for Jim to water his garden, since it is now dry season and the rains are over.

Surrounding our back yard is a living fence. This is the first time we have had this. Before, our back yard was fenced in by a fence made of woven grass. I can just feel the oxygen replenishing in the air from the plant fence.

I suppose it is a good thing to try to preserve the environment, considering the destruction of it that we see all around us. MANY people are making boatloads of money by cutting down trees and selling them to countries like China. As we drive down the road, we see PILES of these huge logs. (Another sad consequence of all of this wood cutting is the mangled fingers and feet from the heavy wood dropping on them, but that is another story for another time…….) While it is a frustrating thing to see, we can certainly understand the desire to try to get ahead in a place where life is overwhelming some times and every day is a struggle to make ends meet. If only they could catch on to reforestation…..

So, we are doing our part to keep our planet alive.