Comoros!!

This week’s blog is going to be all about the Islands of the Moon: Comoros! Comoros is the smallest nation in Africa. It is made up of 3 small islands (Grande Comore, Moheli, and Anjouan), each with unique people, places, and features. Before my sister moved there for the Peace Corps, I had never heard of Comoros and I’m sure that’s where a lot of you started today. After visiting there, I realized how much we were missing out on. Comoros is so special in so many ways. For one thing, it was unsettling how absolutely and genuinely nice every single person there is; I wasn’t used to it at all. The welcome me and my family got upon our arrival was unlike anything I’ve ever or will ever experience, I felt like a celebrity. Everyone looks out for each other; no one is ever alone or singled out. The culture there is very different from America’s or any other place I’ve traveled, but despite the obvious differences I saw, I noticed how similar it is as well. People, no matter where they’re from, share things with others, things that seem to be inherent in all humans. Not only that, people in Comoros have a higher appreciation for just living and being alive than most people I know, including myself. While Comoros is one of the poorest countries in the world, no one complains. Things simply are what they are. There isn’t the same level of materialism, jealousy, or greed that I see everyday in myself and in others where I live. When things get bad, they pray for things to get better, while truly believing that what is meant to happen is happening for a good reason. They trust what they believe and have the most faith I have ever seen in a large group of people. I could go on and on about how amazing of a place Comoros is, I am truly blessed to have been able to see it and experience it for myself. The rest of the world is seriously missing out. For more about Comoros and life there, check out my sister’s blog: https://danielleincomoros.wordpress.com 🙂

Writing this post was pretty difficult for me because my fear is that people will get the wrong idea about Comoros from what I write. Developing countries have such a stigma around them for being poor, diseases, wars and violence, dictatorships and corruption, and being “unclean”. While you can’t deny the fact that yes, many developing countries have at least one of these issues, it is incredibly wrong and ignorant to see those things and think that those are the only things that come out of those places. Not to mention, many developed countries have the same exact issues. The worst thing that could come from this blog post is the validation, or reassurance, that this stigma is true, because it’s not. I want to talk about Comoros, and the problems coming from developing nations environmentally, but I don’t want the main takeaway from this post is that they’re causing problems and that’s it. 

With that being said, there was one environmental issue in Comoros that jumped out at me right away. Since Comoros is a developing country, their infrastructure is not as complex and equipped as infrastructure in more developed countries. Something we may take for granted here is how the government takes care of our waste. In Comoros, there’s no trash service that comes every week and disposes of your things so you don’t even have to think about it. If they have trash, it ends up outside on the ground, in the streets, reused, on the beach, or in piles. Burning trash is the main way of disposing of it, but that method doesn’t rid the islands of all trash and the smell of trash fires is so bad that they aren’t done often. People in developing countries don’t want to litter or contribute to plastic pollution; in fact I don’t think anyone would admit to “wanting” to do that. However, people may not know how what they do impacts the planet or that they’re doing anything “wrong”. Not to mention, there is literally no other alternative for them. There’s no healthy, sustainable way to dispose of their waste. The cost of establishing a trash service, from providing trash cans, people to pick up trash, and a place to dispose of it, as well as the equipment needed for that is pretty much impossible for Comoros and many developing countries to handle. That’s only if a need for that kind of service is even recognized or understood. The issue, at least to me, isn’t the way that these people handle waste; it’s that there isn’t a way for things to change that is quick, easy, or seen as a need. But who can you blame in these situations? Most would be quick to blame the people who live there; when I first saw someone quickly drop a plastic wrapper to the ground there, I had the urge to go pick it up…and then do what? Hold it in my suitcase until I found a trash can? In what way is that helpful? The truth is, you can’t really put the blame on anyone. You just have to accept it as a fact and think of ways to fix it, something more than stuffing trash in your pockets (which I didn’t do, for the record). It’s about education and helping set up resources in a way that is long-term and cost effective. It can’t be done overnight or even in a matter of a few years. I don’t have a clear solution, even though I wish I did. The best we can do is keep researching, observing, and experiencing.

While it is true Comoros’ trash situation is threatening to the environment, there are other things about Comoros that I noticed were pretty awesome. For one thing, almost everyone on the islands uses public transportation or travels by foot wherever they need to go. Their carbon footprint is tiny in comparison to the one of America and other developed countries. They also do not contribute to greenhouse gas emissions or the burning of fossil fuels in a way even remotely close to that of America. The people also reuse what they have more than myself or any person I’ve met; soccer balls are made from old plastic bags and ropes, water bottles are reused, and anything else that can be re-purposed is kept and put to use. But the thing that really got me going the most is how America has everything it needs to be a sustainable, environmentally friendly, and healthy nation. We have money, we have the resources, we have services. But we fail to use them. People still litter all the time, buy single use plastics, our beaches aren’t clean, we don’t push for sustainable living nearly enough, and our leaders go as far as sometimes denying the devastation we are causing our planet everyday. How can we preach sustainability and a healthy world if we ourselves aren’t even on that path? It is true that we are in better shape than some, but at the same time, we are still so far off from the point where we need to be.

Comoros has so much to offer the world, it is my hope that more people seek to learn about and experience it and other places like it. It’s full of incredible wildlife, views, and people. It is much more than the picture of poor nations you get from the news or movies. The only way we can accurately help places like this become more educated about the Earth and how we must treat it is by understanding their way of life and where they’re coming from; the context of the so-called issue. I am so happy that my college major is all about this kind of thing, and I’m excited to apply my knowledge in the future to things like this!

Thank you for reading! I will also have pictures up on my Instagram from Comoros that I can’t wait for you to see! As a side note, I am moving back to college later this week, so depending how smoothly that goes, I may be very inactive this week, but I’m still hoping to have a blog post up next week (even if it’s a short one). Again, thanks for tuning in!

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