First World Problem

Winnipeg has a new garbage removal system.  To say it hasn’t gone so well, is sorta like saying the Pope is a little bit Catholic.

So, around our house this is the score:  The recycling hasn’t been picked up in two weeks…yard waste for three weeks.  There is only so much yard waste that is picked up with each round, and they only come around for yard waste every two weeks, and only for certain periods of the year…so we’ve now missed a good chunk of the opportunities to get rid of the leaves.

I live in the middle of the largest Elm tree forest in the world.  I love it here.  One of the huge perks of where I live. But there are loads and loads of leaves…I didn’t know how we would get rid of them all when the system was working.

Now it’s hopeless.

Added to that, the stores can’t keep in stock the large brown paper bags that the leaves are supposed to be placed in when they are put out for recycling.

We tried multiple stores…no dice.

So…we had to bundle up our leaves in plastic bags which we will then open and empty into paper bags…assuming that the recycling starts to get picked up again AND there we are able to get our grubby green thumbs on some bags. (Never mind the irony of all those used plastic empty garbage bags which I will have to deal with…and there is no environmentally friendly way to deal with them!)

With the ways things are going, the stars will not align, and we will be making forts out of bags of leaves, not snow at our house this winter.

So…after I got home to see the recycled bin still very full and sighed a deep sigh (which was deeper because the news report this morning was that they were caught up), I read Saturday’s paper. (Yes, I know it’s Monday, but it was a busy weekend, and I had a lecture this morning.  Sue me.)

And this is Winnipeg Free Press article I read:  ‘Scarred Forever?’ Overworked Syrian doctors do their best amid chaos.  Seven doctors and two nurses and aides volunteer their time to treat about 120 folks a day who have been injured in bomb blasts.  They only use the bottom three floor of the building because the top floors have taken six direct hits…s’bummer when the top half of your hospital is garbage because of those pesky bombs.

They got garbage problems:

 

Blood is everywhere.  Orderlies mop it up as more wounded arrive.  Amid the din of groans and cries for help, a worker spots a severed limb on the floor and tries to break the tension with some black humour.

“Anyone missing a foot?” he asks.

Bags of leaves piling up suddenly seemed trivial as I am not wiping up blood or finding a place to put a lost limb.

 

Their disposal problems get worse:

 

Because the hospital has no morgue, the dead are left on the sidewalk outside, where it is cooler. If the bodies are not identified and claimed within 12 hours, they are photographed and then buried. Residents who come to the hospital looking for missing relatives are shown the photos and–if they recognize a loved one–are given the choice of exhuming the remains for reburial elsewhere.

Gulp.  And I’m worried about bags of leaves?

 

Big. Reality. Check.

Huge.

I’ve had this phrase rumbling around in my head the last few weeks: “First world problems”.

My garbage problems would be problems that billions of people around the world would love to have.  I’m sure if I explained to them my garbage problem, they’d either curse, raise an eyebrow, or giggle at the ridiculousness of it.

I’m finding that when I keep this phrase in my head, my perspective changes to one of gratitude.

I’m grateful to have a yard that needs raking.

I’m grateful to live in a city with a sanitation system.

I’m grateful that we live in a democracy where we can discuss, disagree, complain in public, advocate for change, and be angry when politicians don’t deliver what they promised.

I’m grateful that on my way home today, I went to the store and bought groceries without the risk of bombing, unlike those in the story who were shelled while standing in a breadline.

I’m gonna work to be more present with all of my reality…not just my so-called “problems” but the blessed circumstances that creates these challenges to me.

And I’ll say a prayer for those that have problems that are life and death.