This blog has finally come out of hibernation because I was able to start volunteering again. It was going to happen last Saturday but there was the first terrorist attack in Kuwait in 2 decades the Friday before so we didn't do it out of a combination of fear and respect for the dead. 

So, what was this about? It's called Streets For People (Instagram) and is run by a local. The idea is to, without sponsors or media campaigns, spread a message about the humanity of street cleaners among friends and acquaintances of volunteers. The reason for this is that, sitting in our new, expensive, air-conditioned cars, it can be easy to dehumanise these men who work for practically nothing in dirty, dusty conditions. It is easy to think that we, with our refined clothing, cultural pursuits, frequent overseas holidays and pleasant perfume, are above them. It is easy even to miss the fact of their existence, as they go about keeping under control the rubbish some of us discard from our windows. 

It's obvious Kuwait has a rubbish problem. This despite large rubbish skips on most streets, ready to take people's refuse. It struck me during our 3-6am session this morning that maybe it would be harder for people to feel ok about littering if they pictured people like us having to pick the rubbish up, rather than someone who is dehumanised. Also, it was heartening being with locals, walking the streets dressed like cleaners, doing cleaning ourselves. Investing, therefore, in the physical beauty of the city. When your heart and body are in it, you take pride in it. You want to protect it. You want to protect yourself from the insult of having your work undone by someone littering again. So you will confront people who litter. That's one way that involving humanised people in rubbish collection could change the whole system of rationalising littering that currently seems to exist. 

So having more humanised people doing rubbish collection is one way that Streets For People will, to me, produce a more beautiful Kuwait. The other way is humanising existing rubbish collection workers so it is offensive to litter, as it is destroying their work. We tried to do that by interviewing them, and had some wonderful assistance from another local, who could speak Bangladeshi and Hindi. Check out the videos. 

Things we found out through the interviews were:

• They like cricket, just like Australians
• They often have lived in Kuwait more than a decade, so they know the place well and some of its history
• They were often in their mid 30s 
• They were short, 5-5.5', but were not emaciated, they seemed to have enough food
• They were willing to talk with us, some even joked around a bit with us as we tried to build rapport such as through comparing Bangladesh and Australia's competitiveness in cricket
• They were impeccably attired when it came to personal protective equipment - bright yellow overalls, clean reflective vest, gloves
• They were often supporting a family back home - one man had 4 children, one had 2
• They were instructed not to collect cigarette buts or other smaller items of rubbish, only larger things such as cans and drink bottles
• They are paid an appallingly low wage, KWD70 per month (about $USD0.80 an hour)
• Until 8 years ago they were on KWD18 per month, and would lose 5 if they were late to the bus!
• When asked what they did back home, one of them said he did the same work, another said he had simply been a high school student... but I didn't manage to get what he did before coming to Kuwait aged 24. 

Did I come away from this process with the view that these men were more human than before? Given that I have been involved, in a minor fashion admittedly, in the topic of humanising migrant workers since mid last year, I'd like to say that this change didn't need to happen for me. I have to admit though that our focus last year was on domestic workers - females. We chatted about men, such as construction workers, but never made any real efforts to try to help. Now I've finally started to do that in a very small way. It feels good to have taken the risk of looking stupid dressed up like them, getting up at 2:30am on a Saturday morning so I could make it in time for the start of their shift (although we found out they actually start at 4am during Ramadan!) As a result of taking this risk, I had the chance to walk 5km in their shoes, stooping to the ground to pick up our rubbish. During that I shook many of their hands, stood with them as we talked, shared smiles and a few words in halting English when our interpreter was in other conversations. Spending time in their presence, I saw them as men. 
 
We were a bit frustrated with the quality of the work though to be honest. There were many patches of old rubbish, like tissue paper caught up in bushes, old batteries, crushed plastic bottle caps on the road or in gutters, an endless carpet of cigarette butts that were left there. When you looked at all of this you could see it had been sitting there for a long time. These guys were obviously following instructions not to get all of these more minor bits of rubbish, then again why shouldn't they, or someone? Why should Kuwait be any less clean than Tokyo? 

The parting comment though should be this - why should we be any less disciplined than the Japanese when it comes to caring for our rubbish? Why should this place require an army of street cleaners? Why, despite this army, is it still dirty? When I saw none in Tokyo, and the place is like a beautiful, tranquil, clean garden on every street? 

It felt somehow sacred to be picking up rubbish today. It's taking ownership. It's a great initiative. Let's keep it going.