Suddenly, or so it appears to people on the outside, Lebanon has a problem with garbage.
Just one day the garbage trucks didn’t come. The dumpsters were full and overflowing, and people were throwing bags of rotting stuff out on the curbs. Pictures of heaped up debris appeared in the papers for the world to see. It happened, not just in Beirut, but in smaller towns on the mountains. Everywhere people were complaining and holding their noses.
Of course, the blame game started right away. The company with the contract for taking care of garbage was the obvious culprit and got accused of taking the money and not doing the work. Then it turned out that the landfills where the company was supposed to take all this stinky debris were full, and there was no place to put it if they picked it up.
Then the environmental ministry started telling the population that they could help a lot by sorting their garbage at home. Like most Americans, I’m thinking. We separate paper and glass and recyclable plastics. We don’t put wet garbage with the dry trash, and this requires considerable washing of dirty objects. It is a bother. Clean streets are a bother. Clean cities are not easy to achieve, and it is easy to imagine that in a country barely more than 10,000 square kilometers, it is hard to find a place to dispose of unwanted trash.
But, agitation led to announcements: there is an end to the crisis; pickup will happen. And the next day: demonstrations! Roads were blocked by citizens of certain areas to prevent garbage from other areas being dumped in their landfills. Mountain villages were unwilling to help Beirut.
Everybody from politicians to peddlers declared this situation to be the final unacceptable failure of a dysfunctional government, and it appeared that garbage might do what Iran and Israel and Al-Qaeda and ISIS and two million homeless, desperate refugees have not been able to do—undo Lebanon and make them fight each other.
Tom Fletcher, the British ambassador has said that such a waste crisis would surely have toppled the UK’s cabinet and did back in the seventies. He added a not exactly complimentary comment: “The Lebanese are upset by the mistakes they see, and they never stop complaining but they also never take action to change the course of things and this is very sad.”
They did do one thing, though, Mr. Ambassador. They went out and set fire to the trash in the streets, polluting the air they then had to breathe. And now 6,000 people in Beirut are without either internet or landlines because of damage caused by burning trash.
I can’t help but remember what happened at the little Baptist hospital in Ajloun, Jordan, a long time ago when the man who normally carried away the garbage was absent from work. Dr. John Roper, (Rober to the Jordanians, because there is no p in Arabic) who was both a surgeon and the hospital director, requested another employee to take the little cart around to the various pick up points and collect the garbage. The employee cited the dignity involved in his own job and declared it not appropriate for him to pick up garbage. So Dr. Roper asked someone else who replied in a similar way. I have forgotten how many people he asked without finding anyone who was not insulted.
Let me point out that maintaining the dignity of one’s position is important in the Jordanian culture and certain jobs are considered demeaning for people with higher training and skills. Dr. Roper knew this very well. He also knew that taking care of the trash and garbage at a hospital was absolutely essential. So, dressed in his white coat and gloves, Dr. Roper got the garbage cart and began to walk around the hospital grounds picking up the refuse.
Another fact of life there in the hills of Gilead was that the Baptist Hospital had saved many a sick or injured person who was far from any other medical help, and the doctors, Roper and August Lovegren were practically revered. People had been known to fall on their faces and kiss the shoes of these men who had saved their children.
So when Dr. Roper began to pick up the garbage, people were aghast. Someone ran to him immediately and said, “Let me, Dr. Rober,” and the doctor refused to listen but kept on working. Another came and begged, “I am sorry, Dr. Rober. I will do it. Let me!” Others showed up to say, “Not you, Dr. Rober. I should do it,” until a line formed behind the surgeon in his white coat, everyone pleading that this was not acceptable, and a resolved “Dr. Rober” told them all, “This is the most important job at this hospital, so I insist on doing it myself.”
That was more than fifty years ago, but I am sure that everyone in Ajloun and maybe some neighboring towns knows the story. Who could forget the humility of Dr. Roper? Who could forget the importance of garbage?
The Lebanese also like to hire people to do their dirty work. Don’t we all? Now and then we need to be reminded how important are those people who are willing to do it, or maybe just can’t get any other job. The less we respect their work, the more we have to respect their humility.
When the garbage trucks finally arrive in Beirut and Beit Meri and Bhamdoun, I hope housewives and engineers and owners of companies will at least go out and applaud. And I need to haul myself out of bed early enough one morning to do that myself here on my clean street in the California hills.