Tidy sites & recycling

I was expecting messy building sites in Sierra Leone, as you would expct in the UK, but I have frequently been surprised at how neat, tidy and organised everything and everyone is here. 

Every bit of scrap wood is used, reused and used again. Scrap metal never goes to waste - being reused or sold for scrap. Rather than being as a result of some eu legislation, any scrap material has a value, and as most materials and goods are imported, that value is relatively high. Perhaps if the price of landfill in the uk was higher, people would be more inclined to reuse materials and waste less. The end result may be the same - less waste, less cost, albeit for different reasons. 

Old cement bags are torn up and used as scrap paper. Any empty drinks cans left lying about overnight often disappear by the next morning: "people take them and sell them, they are worth a lot here" Mohammed explains. If only these 'night time cleaners' could visit the pavements, hedgerows and streets of England's 'green and pleasant land' - they would have a field day. 

Everyone works really well in small groups here, never tripping over or bashing into each others work. If two groups are working in the same area, they will happily work around each other, sometimes combine their efforts, or move around, so the workplace doesn't become too congested. 

Sierra Leoneans are very tidy people, keeping everything organised and neat. The roads may be poor, the pavements sometimes non existent, but people take time to sweep their own area in front of their houses, and are keen to keep their workplaces and building sites tidy. The sites here must be the cleanest I've ever seen. They may only have a bunch of twigs to use as a brush, but they are proud of their work, and of their workplaces. The same goes for their homes. They often demonstrate huge ingenuity, i.e. using a waterfilled tube in place of a theodolite, making all ladders, trestles, benches, chairs, store room shelves, temporary doors, even the office desk, out of scrap wood. Nothing is wasted. Any bent nails are hammered back into shape and used. Formwork is used and reused, nails carefully removed. Hammers are made out of scrap wood: the handles whittled down into the shape using a saw, then properly pinned into an old hammer head, good as new.