talking trash

At camp this weekend, the children played the trash pick up game. Each team had a bag and ran about picking up litter.
Whoever gathers the most wins.
It was so funny. It was like an African Easter egg hunt. All, the children running to and fro like a scurry of ants, looking around, all darting for the same wrapper.
One would raise up triumphantly with a cheer, and the others would disregard him and run in another direction.
The sad part was, these children are so use to living among trash and rubbish in their communities and homesteads, that many of the little ones had a hard time determining what “trash” was.
They knew sweet wrappers, and sucker sticks were trash because Lad has told them so. But chicken bones? Mealie cobs? Broken things?
I tried to help one boy when I spotted a piece of trash. “Here’s one. Quick ,get it!”
He ran to where I was pointed and stopped.
“what?”
“That. That there.”
He looked at me confused. Then I guess he decided to take my word for it. He shrugged, picked it up and ran off again.
I guess we should have told the children that anything that is not dirt, a rock, a stick, or grass is rubbish and belongs in the bag, not the ground.