Talking dirty

Oh, the joys of being a community journalist! Being blessed with the ability to write about people and events within the community, one often finds oneself at places and in situations most people never get to see or experience.
An in-house saying within the journalistic fraternity is: “Stuff always happens, and then we write about it.” Which is good you might say? Well, not always.
Imagine this, dear reader. You are sitting at your desk, preparing to write a feel-good story about someone caring for a fellow human being or you are bursting to tell the world about a wonderful achievement by a member of the community and you get a phone call that makes your day.
“You must please come and see all this sewage flowing in front of my yard. Just come and smell for yourself the stench we have to put up with and you must take photos so that the people can see it and come and fix it.”
Ooh, boy. While other photo journalists who work for national publications get to photograph beautiful people, exotic landscapes and scenery, delicious-looking food (and then being invited to eat the food) we, the community journalists, are increasingly being “invited” to photograph… yes, well… that stuff.
The number of sewage spills in our town is shocking and the inability of the authorities to keep pace with and rectify these spills is even more shocking.
This is a story on its own and has been well documented in the media.
The biggest shock is seeing what people from all walks of life flush down toilets or throw away in public places for other people to come and clean up.
All this tells a sad story of how society has plunged itself into a comfort zone of “don’t care” and complete disregard for our fellow human beings.
The attitude adopted by some people is one of “It’s their job to come and clean up,” and this is so sad.
We shouldn’t be littering and messing up in the first place, because we all know that “they” are either slow in reacting to municipal issues or simply don’t react at all.
I was especially saddened on Monday this week to see all the hard work and praiseworthy efforts by business people and organisations in town to clean up the Pet Dam almost coming to naught.
Weekend-revellers at the Pet Dam again left the usual trail of unsightly trash on the banks of the dam, which all but cancels out the efforts and intentions of the people who went the extra mile to clean up the area around the dam.
When will mankind ever learn that whatever we do to the environment today will impact upon our children and grandchildren tomorrow?
We have the guts and bravado to choke up dams and rivers with our fast food containers and empty bottles, but will we have the guts to say sorry to our children when all the fish have died and the rivers have become so polluted that they are of no use to us?
Come on, people, let’s take responsibility for our actions.