Primavera Limpieza

This weekend marked the vernal equinox and the beginning of la primavera, and here in Guanajuato we felt that annual compulsion to do some cleaning. It’s not that we are shaking off winter – it has been a pretty consistent, gloriously sunny 80°F here for the past several weeks – but perhaps it’s the idea of tipping past the half-way point of the equinox that makes us want to clean the slate, freshen up.

And the community of Guanajuato was promoting spring cleaning this weekend, too, holding its first annual spring clean-up work days around several tourist areas and a dam. Two TV stars took a break from filming a telenovela on the steps of Teatro Juarez to join the effort and pick up trash. The local paper stated, “Se invita a la población en general para unir esfuerzos teniendo como objetivo en común el mejoramiento de nuestro medio ambiente en la capital y sus alrededores.” The general public was invited to work together toward the common goal of improving the natural environment of the capital and surrounding area.

So Mark and I donned red rubber gloves and did a walk-around, picking up trash on the street outside our apartment. Why did it take us nine weeks to get around to doing this? The fact is, there is a lot of roadside trash: Sabritas potato chip bags, Coca-Cola bottles, white plastic forks, Marinela cookie packages, graying papers, gum wrappers, and, of course, the ubiquitous plastic bags.

Residences here are not equipped with giant plastic garbage barrels on wheels that allow one to produce copious amounts of trash and deal with it by walking a few steps into the garage. Here, collective garbage bins are located sporadically around the neighborhoods; one disposes of household trash by carrying the bags down the street to the nearest bin. While we collected our bag of litter this weekend, a woman walked by with her own bag of trash and offered to carry ours, too, the ten-minute walk to the bin. She was willing to make our trash her burden. Maybe that’s how we should think about the garbage we produce: What are we willing to carry down the road?