Cape Town Rocks.

We left Kampala very early in the morning last Monday before the sun came up. The night before our host Betty threw a party in our honor at her house. That's another blog post all together. There was matooke, dancing, strange games and lots of Nile Special. In short: it was super rad.

We all left kind of sad to say goodbye to our friends, and a place that had grown very familiar to us. We were all pretty comfortable on the back of an erratic motorbike. We knew how to do the ubiquitious Ugandan handshake (I'll show you when I get back) and how to sit on the ground properly (on your knees).

We arrived to Cape Town after a short, hectic stop over in J'burg airport (suffice to say they better get their shit together before they're hit with the World Cup clusterfuck that's headed at them next year).

After our first week here draws to a close, my first impressions have turned out to be pretty accurate:

Wow. Is it ever different here.

I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting... cooler weather... better food... wider offerings at the movie theater... But it goes so far beyond that, I find myself forgetting I'm in Africa at all.

An example of things that are different here: meters in cabs, salads you can eat without thinking twice, potable water, pedicures, sodas in plastic bottles and metal cans, vineyards, museums, fantastic thai food, hipsters, a wide variety of people who come in all different colors, dentyne ice: arctic chill, lack of need for mosquito nets, pharmacies in which a prescription is required, lack of haggling for every single thing you might want to purchase, large number of fellow travellers, autumnul colors and weather, a large middle class... you get the idea. It goes on. And on and on and on.

It's hard to describe how shocking and overwhelming it was the first few days here. Especially for Lisa and I, who have spent the past three months gradually getting used to avoiding uncooked vegetables and arguing over every monetary transaction. I think it's the sudden familiarity with how things work and what things are that's so surreal.

What's even more shocking to think about is how a country like Zimbabwe could share a border with a country like this. Granted, there are very evil things bubbling under the surface here that I have only the most casual knowledge of, and I'll probably leave here without ever coming into contact with the way life is for the cogs in the wheels that live in slums and keep to themselves.

But the sheer functionality of South Africa is truly astounding. The stability of it. Wow.

in which I totally lose it.

Growing up with a mom like mine, I've spent lots of time in the company of mentally and physically handicapped children. She's a pediatric physical therapist who's owned her own practice since before I was born. She's really good at it, and almost always positive about her patients and their futures.

I've always known that handicapped children were special, brave, hardworking little people and I've rarely seen them as very limited in any way. With the right amount of coaxing and determination they could (if not easily) lead happy, healthy, productive lives. And they manage to do it all facing more challenges than the average "abled" person will ever have to deal with in the entirety of their lives.

Yesterday, Betty (who is disabled herself after a childhood illness left her walking on crutches) took us to visit a mother of two twins, one of whom is handicapped. They're both 13, and while there is no Lugandan word for her disability, I can pretty decisively diagnose her with cerebral palsy.

I have known so many children affected with CP. Several of them 1/2 of a set of twins. Many of them are no longer children, but rather adults with jobs and responsibilities. College students cramming for exams and partying with their friends. Spoiled teenagers who are the apple of their daddy's eyes. In short: just like me. Just like you. "Regular", whatever that connotes. Average.

I say all this to try to convey what an utter shock it was for me to enter the courtyard of several mud huts, and be face to face with a 13 year old girl, in a red wheelchair, suffering (a very deliberately chosen word) from cerebral palsy. Immediately, my heart started to race and I could feel a very unfamiliar wetness creep into my eyes.

I am not a crier. The closest I get to tears back at home is when I've had too much to drink and I initiate a pity party in my honor. On this trip, I have stood witness to so many forms of utter poverty, desperate people, struggling mothers and disease ridden bodies that I've become pretty numbed to feeling anything more than compassion and anger.

As Betty introduced me to the girls' mother and described what she was trying to do to help the family, I could feel my composure slipping. By the time we made it into their shabby one room mud hut, I had completely lost it. I had to excuse myself and squat around the corner, weeping into my hands.

It wasn’t that she was so thin. And it wasn’t that she looked like she was maybe 7, instead of 13. It wasn’t her bald head or the flies that congregated by her eyes and nose. It was that in her moans and squeals, I couldn’t decipher anything human. And I knew it wasn’t because she was inhuman, I knew a desire to communicate, to ask for what she wanted, to laugh with her friends and talk back to her mom was contained inside the fragile, bald little girl in the red wheel chair. I knew that inside of her was an adult with responsibilities, and a college student and a spoiled teenager. But I also knew that she had no hope of ever getting to lead a life that was any different from the one she was currently leading. All of the different possibilities and hopes that are contained in a little girl of 13, even the most destitute, were completely, 100% absent in this girl.

Betty confirmed this, when she told me that for kids this disabled in Uganda, their parents –at best – are just trying to keep them alive until they die. Betty gave this little girl less than a year.

Her mom couldn’t afford to buy the protein her daughter needed to stay alive. Which was bad enough, and a familiar enough tale at this point in our trip. But what seemed almost worse to me, was that Betty (a very educated, in the know, advocate for the disabled) didn’t really understand me, when later in the car I tried to describe what services my mom provided for disabled children. Physical therapy? Speech therapy? Cognitive therapy? Therapy? All of these were foreign terms to her, and required lots of explanation to convey their meanings. Parents don’t even talk to these children. They never learn to speak, or communicate. They’re lucky to even see the light of day, as most parents have to lock their children inside while they go to work. This girl, Betty described as “lucky”. Lucky because she has a donated wheelchair and is able to sit outside.

The best these kids can hope for is to get born into enough money so that their parents can afford to put them in an institution. Otherwise, “life” is a word that’s completely off base in describing the future that’s in store for them. They will not lead productive lives. They will not laugh with their friends. They will not go to college. They will not raise families. And they will never have adult responsibilities.

It’s the most upsetting, harrowing and depressing situation I’ve seen here in Africa. And on the rest of our silent car trip down to the Equator, I tearfully pondered possible solutions and came up with nothing.

Africa and the quest for gold.

I am a pretty adaptable person, and I've gotten used to tons of local customs that the average bear might not have been down with. I am now a world class heckler, despite loathing the custom with every inch of my being. I chewed chat with the locals in Ethiopia, despite the bitter taste and long duration of the "ritual". I ate cow stomach in Palissa, despite it's wet laundry smell and texture. I ride boda bodas hands-free, despite visions of flying off at ever pothole.

However, there is one custom that I will never get used to. It grosses me out in such a basic, fundamental way that despite the regularity of it's appearance, I can't help but cringe each time I'm confronted with it. Yell at me for being culturally tone deaf, but if I never see another Ugandan pick their nose it will be too soon.

I'm not talking, a casual wipe here, or a flick there, or even a kid exploring his nasal cavity. I mean, grown adults, shoving half of their finger up their noses, prying out disgusting gobs of phlegm and then flicking that phlegm in any odd direction.

They don't just do it when they think no one is looking. You could find yourself in the middle of talking with someone (say the dean of a university, or a member of parliament) when, without dropping the conversational thread, they push their finger up their nose and wiggle it around. With authority.

Even worse, some of our interview subjects go at it while we're in the middle of an interview. As casual as you or I would run our hands through our hair. It's really unnerving and nearly pushes me into uncontrollable giggles every time. Which can be inconvenient when discussing abject poverty with someone who is living in abject poverty. Not exactly the time for a chuckle.

I guess you never see anyone here rearranging their crotch, as is the fashion in the United States. But I wish the good old American value of using tissues and privacy to extract clingy boogers would cross the Atlantic already.

Not to mention, it makes me very wary of shaking peoples hands.

Pallisa

One of the parts of our trip that I have been most excited about was returning to Pallisa, the small rural town in Eastern Uganda where I spent a summer 5 years ago. I was a little nervous to go back – I wasn’t sure what I would find when I got there or if any of my friends would still be there since I didn’t have current phone numbers or e-mails for them and only had a vague recollection of where their houses are (road names and physical addresses don’t really exist in a town like Pallisa).

When Erin and I arrived in Pallisa most of the town was exactly as I had remembered it – one long paved road with lots of stores that sell exactly the same things. For such a small town there’s an over abundance of photocopy/stationary shops and a few supermarkets that sell staples like soap, toilet paper, etc… and not much else. The scenery of the countryside surrounding Pallisa is exactly the same in any direction – miles and miles of red dirt roads with lush green fields and banana trees against the bluest sky you’ll ever see.

When I was in Pallisa before there was only one hotel in town – the Country Inn, which is where I lived for the summer. The Country Inn was my oasis during that summer. Living in such an isolated town by myself I frequently felt out of place and homesick and the Country Inn was comfortable, private, clean and had a friendly staff to come back to every day.

Even at that time the Country Inn seemed wildly out of place in a town like Pallisa. The owner Charles is a successful lawyer in Kampala and he built the hotel in an effort to reinvest back in his community and attract tourism and business to Pallisa – it was a really noble idea. The reality of it though is that Pallisa isn’t really on the way to anywhere. There are no tourist attractions and the business people have no reason to come here when there are plenty of bigger cities with at least equal or better accommodations. So for most of the summer that I lived there I was the only guest at the Country Inn. I always wondered if the business would be sustainable in the long run, without anything to attract customers, but I really hoped they would find a way to make it successful and help to improve the local Pallisa economy.

When we arrived this time, the exterior of the Country Inn was pretty much the same. But I immediately knew that things were different when we stepped inside the lobby. The interior was dingy. It wasn’t completely run down yet, but it looked like time stopped 5 years ago and there was just an overwhelming sense of neglect, like an old haunted house. The walls were grayer with random wires poking in and out.

One of the things that stood out to me when I was here 5 years ago was how professional the staff was – there were always overstaffed for the amount of business they got, but everyone did their best to stay busy and keep the place in tip top shape. I was always impressed by the quality of service and could tell that everyone on the staff felt proud to be working there since it was obviously one of the most modern and sophisticated operations in Pallisa. This time, the staff was friendly enough, but a little indifferent and even a little confused by the presence of actual customers. Its hard to sustain enthusiasm in an obviously dying business.

My return to the Country Inn left me feeling sad. I don’t think I was surprised by what I saw; actually the Country Inn looked exactly like I thought it would when I imagined my return to Pallisa. And even in its current condition the Country Inn is still a fairly nice hotel by Pallisa standards, but its fairly easy to project what the Country Inn will be like in 5 or 10 more years, if its even still around. Pallisa seems to be one of those places that’s stuck in a never-ending cycle of poverty. Its hard to imagine how a place like that can really lift itself out of this cycle and make progress.

On a side note, while we were in Pallisa Erin and I did catch up on some tv watching since there wasn’t much else to do after dark. One of the shows that we watched was E!’s Dr. 90210, which is one of my guilty pleasures at home. For those of you who haven’t watched it, its basically a reality show that follows rich plastic surgeons and their whiny wives as they deal with the trials and tribulations of living in Beverly Hills. It was very surreal watching a show like that in Pallisa and viewing the over-the-top American culture through the perspective of someone here. We were sitting with people who struggle to put food on the table and watching obese American’s paying exorbitant amounts of money to have their fat sucked out. Both experiences are pretty far removed from my everyday life, but for a Ugandan I can only imagine that the doctors of Beverly Hills must have seemed like they were from Mars.

Finally, if you’ve made it this far into this epic post, I’ll end on a brighter note. We were actually able to find my friend Stella’s house (after some hunting and help from a few friendly neighbors) and had a nice visit with her. Seeing Stella was like a breath of fresh air. She is an extremely smart and capable woman who has really persevered and been very successful. She is still working for NACWOLA (National Community of Women Living with AIDS). Despite the fact that they no longer have funding to pay her a salary she continues to volunteer her time to provide support services to HIV positive women in her community. Her children are also growing up to be really outstanding young people. Her daughter Genevieve wants to become a doctor and is becoming a very bright beautiful young woman – she also has some of Stella’s spunk! Erin and I both agreed that her 3 sons – Paul, Michael and George - were the most obedient children we’ve ever met. They all have a very easy-going and fun relationship with Stella and seem to really enjoy one another’s company. When I was here before, Stella had taken in two teenage orphans whose parents had died of AIDS. After I left the boy and the girl actually got married and continue to have a close relationship with Stella.


One of the evenings that we were in Pallisa Stella cooked us an amazing meal of really delicious local foods and also invited Anna, one of my other NACWOLA friends. I’m constantly amazed by women like Anna and Stella who face such tremendous obstacles in their lives and continue to have a positive outlook and the strength to persevere. This year Anna traveled to India and Stella traveled to Zimbabwe on behalf of NACWOLA and it was really interesting to hear about these experiences from their perspectives. It reminded me again of how lucky Erin and I are that we’re getting to see so many new places and meet so many amazing people on this trip.

Kenya Burning

One of our first days in Kenya, Erin and I found a really great (and free!) photography exhibit called Kenya Burning that chronicles the violence that took place in Kenya during the 2007 elections. It was a real eye opener for me because although I had followed the post-election rioting in the news I don't think that it really sunk in just how widespread the violence was, and just how close Kenya came to the brink of disaster.

It was interesting to see how immediate the local media's response was to the crisis. The exhibit had a film of interviews with many of the local journalists and photographers who documented the violence and it was a huge reminder for me about the power that a free press has to really change the course of history. During the crisis, the Kenyan radio was constantly broadcasting messages throughout the country urging moderation and warning Kenyans how closely the situation resembled the early stages of Rwanda -- which is so different from the way that Rwandan radio messages were used to fuel the violence during the genocide there.

There is something surreal about seeing such graphic depictions of violence and then realizing that it happened so recently. On the one hand, I was impressed at how transparent the exhibit was -- it certainly didn't sugar coat anything and I think that in general it says a lot about the society's resiliency that it is already reflecting on and trying to come to terms with such a traumatic time. On the other hand, in talking to most Kenyans we've spoken to there is still a fair bit of pessimism and mistrust in the government. There also seems to be a general sense of fear that the worst may be yet to come with the next round of elections, as very little has changed to address people's concerns about corruption in the government.

And on a day-to-day basis people's lives continue to be impacted by the violence because of its impact on the local economy. Even for low season it seems incredible that in most of the cities we've gone to in Kenya we've only bumped into a handful of other tourists. For the local vendors, this means that they have fewer opportunities to make a buck -- for us tourists it means that every time we leave our hotel we are accosted by at least 10 people trying to hawk the same kitschy crafts.

Ethiopia highlights

Hello Everyone -- As Erin has mentioned, Ethiopia's internet is extremely slow. So here is my belated post on my highlights of Ethiopia as we've just arrived in Nairobi!

Navigating Addis has given Erin and me plenty of entertainment (and transportation adventures seems to be a recurring theme of our journey). One of our more ridiculous taxi rides happened on the way back from dinner one night -- we negotiated a fair price with the driver and hopped into the cab. About 10 minutes later our taxi sputtered to a stop on the side of a highway. After many failed attempts at restarting the engine our taxi driver got on his cell phone and called a friend. A few minutes later a new taxi pulled up and our first driver hustled us over to the new taxi. After a few confused minutes of figuring out what to do about payment for the first driver and trying to negotiate how much the second driver was going to charge we finally settled into our new taxi, realizing that our first taxi driver was actually offering to give his entire fare to the second driver. Lo and behold two seconds after our second taxi started up the hill it too conked out. By this point Erin and I were starting to wonder if this wasn't some kind of scam... but finally, after a few more confused minutes our first taxi driver walked up the hill and procured a third taxi for us. He was an absolute professional -- didn't take a cent for himself and negotiated our fare with the third driver so that we didn't get cheated on the price... and of course we felt very guilty for even thinking that he was trying to cheat us in the first place.

Navigating on foot has also had its fair share of challenges as well, despite our purchase of an excellent German map of the city. Addis would do well to assign names and numbers to its streets if it wishes to make things easier for tourists (and locals as well), but there is a certain charm in finding your way through the city like a scavenger hunt. Erin and I spent almost an entire hour scouring a 5 block radius, winding up and down a posh gated community of mostly international embassies looking for an elusive Thai restaurant that had advertised at our hotel. Their marketing campaign was ubiquitous and actually quite good except for the fact that they don't have an actual address, so all of their fliers have to make do with cryptic references to nearby landmarks and poorly drawn maps that kept us hunting for quite some time. But if there's one thing that Erin and I most always agree on, it is that a good meal is worth the hunt. We persevered and had some remarkably good Pad See Ew.

If Erin has not already mentioned it, Ethiopian food is not my favorite. It has been interesting to be here during the fasting period for lent because it means that meat is basically nonexistant on the menus. It has actually made ordering quite easy because usually the only dish available in local restaurants is the traditional fasting plate -- injera with a variety of vegetarian samplings on top. I actually don't mind the flavor of the vegetables, but something about injera just doesn't do it for me. And after two and a half weeks of fasting plates I'm more than ready to move on to Kenya for more culinary variety...

The biggest highlight of the trip for me was our 3-day, 22 mile trek in the Simien Mountains where we saw wild baboons, tons of beautiful birds and some incredible scenery. The mountains are breathtaking -- literally and figuratively. At an altitude of 4,000 m and with very steep inclines the hike was very challenging. Even at our campsite, the pit latrine was all the way at the bottom of a very steep hill that always left me huffing and puffing at the top and certainly made me think twice about whether I really had to go to the bathroom or not. And the water taps were in the complete opposite direction down another steep hill. Erin can attest to the fact that I was the only one among our 6-person trekking group that opted not to hike out of my way to take the coldest shower ever and preferred to wallow in the grittiness for our 3 days in the wild...

The vistas were absolutely incredible -- it looked a lot like the Grand Canyon. The biggest difference by far was the remoteness of the Simiens compared to the Grand Canyon. When you go to the Grand Canyon its hard not to be within earshot or eyesight of another tourist for even a minute. In the Simiens we did an entire 16km hike without encountering another soul (and then we landed in a Village in the absolute middle of nowhere, which was a bit surreal). In some ways its amazing to have that level of preservation, but it also made me a little sad to think how few Ethiopians ever actually see the Simiens, aside from those who actually live here. It really brought home for me the difference between a culture that can afford leisure and one that cannot....

Which brings me to my final impression of Ethiopia. Throughout the country -- in both the city and the rural areas -- the one constant refrain that I keep coming back to is how incredibly hard life is here. Along most of the countryside you see endless fields full of people tending to their crops with extremely manual and primitive tools, maybe a mule if they're lucky. Women will walk for miles with a load of firewood on their backs and in search of the nearest water source. Its nothing for children to hike up and down a very steep mountain a few kilometers (without water!) to get to and from school each day. On our second day here I encountered two people actually bathing in puddles of rainwater on the streets of Addis -- it certainly makes me think twice when I'm hoping for a hot water shower to think about not having one at all.

In which I almost redeem my repatriation of remains clause

So far here are the words I know in Amharic:

Ah mah seken aloo = thank you!

Bekka = enough

Selam = hello

Cuss ba Cuss = slowly, slowly (you have to really accentuate the C sound to get it right)

This last phrase I used copiously on our 3 day hike up into the Simien Mountains in north west Ethiopia. We hiked 22 miles up to almost 4,000 meters above sea level. My lungs felt like they were going to explode and ooze out of my body, leaving me a sad, dirty, windblown corpse. Luckily, we were accompanied by a guide (who spoke english) and a scout (who did not). The scout, with his intimidating looking gun (what was he protecting us from? babboons? kids who coveted our water bottles?). He became my pesonal bodyguard and best friend of the trip. I vacillated between dramatic huffing abd pugging, to accentuate my struggle and apologetic looks that he had to wait for me. We bonded over Beyonce on my iPod as I tried to catch my breath.

Despite my proximity to unglamorous death, it was really a wonderful time (sorry no pictures! I'm still in Ethiopia! land of the slowest internet connection ever!) And I felt a really great sense of accomplishment upon finishing our third day, alive.

I have a lot to say about Ethiopia. None of it terribly cohesive. So here's a list:

* They really love empty water bottles here. But it feels weird giving someone your trash, even though you know that they want it. It's hard to get used to, and feels vaguely insulting. But they ask for them constantly.

* The food is super good. I'll be sad to leave. I haven't gotten sick once (knock on wood) and have even started branching out to salads and raw food!

* There is a really awsome blanket culture here. Especially up in the mountains. People walk around wrapped in blankets all day long. I wish it was culturally appropriate in the states. How awesome would THAT be? (answer: totally awsome)

* Ethiopia is not for the faint of heart. As in the physically faint of heart. There is a LOT of uphill walking to be done, even just to get around in a very basic way. Also the sights are usually strategically located up a massive mountain that takes an hour or so to walk up (especially if your speed is cuss ba cuss like me)

* Little kids love love love practicing their English here. They usually just know "hi" or "good morning" but today Lisa and I hiked up to see a monastary (up a mountain, I wasn't kidding about that) and when school got out at least 35 kids asked me what time it was. Because they had just learned it in class.

* Kids also know how to ask you for stuff. Water bottles are the most popular request, but sometimes they just want some water (which is easily shared). In the Simiens the kids would come up behind you and whisper "water, waaater, waaaater" or something ot that effect and it was really creepy. Now I like to creep up behind Lisa and say "satan, saaaatan, saaaaaaaaaatan". It hink things like this happen after 5 weeks of uninterrupted togetherness.

So those are my thoughts currently. Sorry they're not more cohesive. I wish I could post pictures because I have a lot of really amazing ones... but I can't! It's Ethiopia for Christ's sake! Which brings me to my next point. We're in Lalibela now, home of the rock hewn churches that King Lalibela made in the 13th century to be a "second Jeruselum" which is kind of weird, made weider as you tour the churches and the guide is like "This is where Christ was crucified, this is where he was born" etc etc. And it's like... uhm.. but he WASN'T actually born here! It's like an ancient Disney World for Jesus lovers, I guess. Tomorrow is Ethiopian Good Friday, so that should be even more interesting. Or disturbing. Depending how you look at it!

I leave here Saturday and then have about 3 more days in Addis and then it's off to Kenya!

xoxo erin.

egyptian recycling

So. Our Ten Thousand Villages - EGYPT stop was to visit a really nice woman named Linda from the MCC (Mennonite Central Committee... before we continue, please don't hold it against me if I get some details like names and things wrong... I'm only human and I didn't write anything down, and Lisa's not sitting beside me to confirm if I'm correct... that said...) who took us into a community of garbage collectors in the outskirts of Cairo.





In Cairo a certain percentage of waste is collected by independent garbage collectors, for something like 5 Egyptian pounds a month. The guy comes every week and takes the haul back to his house (in this community, in other communities the garbage is taken waaay outside the city and sorted there) where he and his family sort through it salvage about 95% of it, while discarding the rest. The salvaged material is sorted into... plastic bottles... cans... fibers... organic matter ... cardboard... plastic... paper etc. He then sells those items to a specialized collector in that same community who recycles it for further use.





Ten Thousand Villages purchases really neat rugs and bags that are made in a compound in the community out of recycled cloth. It's cut into strips and woven to make really pretty bags (they'd make great beach bags). Additionally they make paper out of salvaged materials. You can buy their stuff at http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/ (and you SHOULD).





Anyway, back to the matter at hand. I was actually expecting much worse living conditions than what we found in the community. It is definitely it's own little world, tucked away from the rest of Cairo society. Most of the people living there are Christians (which is, obviously, not the norm ANYWHERE else in Cairo), and the community itself is very insular. They have their own hospital, schools, church etc. And I guess it would be unwise to underemphasize the squalor that these people have to put up with (no pictures though, Linda gave us a tour but asked that we not take pictures as it makes the people living there rightfully angry at being photographed dirty and living such a dirty lifestyle).





There was trash EVERYWHERE. People generally would sort trash in the first story of their house, and live above it on the next level. They generally also keep cows, pigs etc on the first floor to eat the organic matter they can find. Swarms, and swarms of flies everywhere. Lots of kids covered in blackish dust and muck. The stench was pretty much what you'd expect. Linda told us that in another community like the one we saw, they discovered that a group of kids were getting these weird chronic illnesses in large numbers... the found out that the community had been making toys out of recycled hospital waste... The whole thing is a public health crisis.





That said, I was really impressed at the level of organization in the community itself. The garbage collectors, while social outcasts, actually make a more steady, reliable living than a lot of the lower class in Cairo. They are looked down upon (they're considered a step above beggars), but they are actually fairly economically stable. From what we saw, everyone was pretty well fed, safe and relatively happy. It was much better than what I was expecting.





Also... think about recycling 95% of what we throw away! It's inconcievable. It really makes you think twice about what you put in the trash here...





That's it from Egypt.. we're headed to Ethiopia tomorrow to stay at the famed $4 a night Wutma Hotel! 24 hour hot water! I have a feeling posting there will be a bit more difficult (pictures may be impossible from here on out), but we'll see!





Hope all is well back home!

Here's an aerial of the community we saw. If you zoom in (however you do that) you can get a bit of a sense of the neighborhood. Pigs in the back yard, trash everywhere, goats on the roof... etc. Sorry it's the only one! Go buy some recycled fabric bags!