Healthy environment, peaceful life

May 6, 2009 at 10:31 am Leave a comment

Last Friday (May 1) was a great day—check out the photos below. It was the official opening of our Eco Club— dignitaries giving speeches and tv cameras filming the event, our own logo on a flag waving in the breeze, drums beating, and everyone in Muron collecting trash.
For me, it all started long ago. When my son Clayton was three, we were walking to nursery school one day when a man approached from the other direction. Clayton smiled up at him brightly and announced with pride in his voice, “We’re picking up trash!” I’m not sure what the man thought, but in those days I always carried a bag with me on walks and we picked up the odd bits of flotsam and jetsam along the way. I’m still at it.
When I first arrived here in Muron, I was sorry to see so much litter along the streets and very few places to dispose of it. I found out that there were clean up days sponsored by the city government, but they didn’t seem to make much of an impact. Not long after I arrived, I was invited to a gathering of people involved in local tourism who were discussing how to get more tourists to stay a little longer in Muron before they headed off to Lake Khovsgol, the Khovsgul Province’s main tourist attraction. A ger camp owner sitting next to me spoke English and quietly translated the gist of what was being discussed. Finally, I gathered up my courage and said (with the help of translator) there was one thing they could do that needn’t cost a lot of money and would give a more favorable impression of Muron. My suggestion was simply to clean up the trash along the streets, improving the health as well as the appearance of the community. As far as I could tell though, my suggestion seemed to go unheeded.
Over the past months, I became more aware of many environmental issues that face this country, like water, land, and air pollution, deforestation, global warming and desertification. Compared to more developed nations, Mongolia’s carbon footprint is pretty modest, but we all know that no matter where we are we are each responsible for doing what we can to restore our world to a healthier state. And we also know how important it is to reach the children. It occurred to me perhaps I could start some sort of environmental club in the schools, perhaps coming up with some projects that would raise young people’s awareness of environmental issues in their own community and the world and show them they could have an impact right here. I talked about the idea with some Mongolian friends and the other two Peace Corps Volunteers in my community. People seemed interested, so much so we decided to start both an adult and a student group.
We learned that Muron’s Department of Sanitation and Beautification Department were planning a number of environmental projects, including making and installing trash bins along the main street but that tight budgets were threatening the projects. Our adult group met weekly talking about how we could work together to make this project happen. We visited several schools and talked about the Eco Club—a number of kids signed up. We ran a contest offering prizes for the best anti-litter poster and received some great entries. A talented graphic artist here designed a great logo for us. Several others came up with a slogan for the club. With contributions from World Vision and others, we got the first wave of the trash bins constructed. We planned an opening day for the club where we would meet at the town square, have some opening ceremonies (Mongolians like lots of fanfare) and then go to the river along the edge of Muron to collect trash along its banks.
We had planned for this event to take place on Saturday May 2. Then the week before we learned that Muron was also planning a clean-up event similar to ours on May 1st. Was it a coincidence? I’m not so sure. But the upshot was we combined the two events and clean-up day was kicked off last Friday at the town square. Both Muron’s governor (Mayor) and Khovsgul Aimag’s governor gave speeches and then I got to give a speech about the Eco Club. We awarded prizes for the best posters. And one of our members led the crowd in our new slogan: “Healthy environment, peaceful life” (sounds more catchy in Mongolian!). The new Eco Club members were all there wearing the green neckscarves World Vision had made for us and waving our flag made with our new logo on it. One group of students made green flags to carry and someone brought along five snare drums to provide some fanfare. Local TV stations covered the event. After the ceremony, we all trooped off to the river and had a great time collecting bagsful of trash. The mayor and governor even came by and thanked us for what we were doing. After they left, we played some games, had a snack, handed out prizes, and then marched down Muron’s main street waving flags and beating our drums. At the end of it, we gathered by a monument and sang some songs and cheered some cheers before we dispersed.
As you can imagine, I am thrilled by how it has turned out. Many people working together on a worthwhile activity and having such a good time doing so. We have a lot of ideas for future projects and I hope we can keep up the momentum. One thing we hope to do is find some environmental clubs in the U.S. that we can exchange ideas with about what we are each doing to help the environment—and foster some inter-cultural exchanges at the same time. If you know of any such groups, feel free to put them in touch with me.

Click on image to see it larger.