Another rant...

No thanks, we don’t need your crap.

When you donate something, you should feel a little pinch. That’s your stinginess rebelling against the action. If you donate the old coat that you would never be caught dead wearing, that’s not generosity, that’s cleaning out your closet.

The container arrived yesterday after a prolonged stay in the bond area. Nothing that has to with bureaucracy is ever easy here and rules change each year but at least it has arrived and the contents are all fine.

Ediga came to fetch us after the container was emptied (to be lifted off the truck) so that we could collect our items that had floated their way across the ocean. “Anything that isn’t books belongs to us,” we told the men who were reloading the boxes into the container. We got all our sanitary kits, the rolls of PUL and flannel, the duffle bag filled with little dresses and shorts from the Alliance ladies, and a few extra duffle bags that I figured someone had put in for us or for the Days for Girls Uganda team.

We got the bags and boxes home and looked through each one to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. I didn’t cherish the thought of having to return to the container to try to find a lost box but it seemed that we had all the sanitary supplies we had sent. As it was, Ediga did manage to find another box of pads and he brought that home for us.

I opened the duffle bags that were “new” to me. One had fleecy blankets that someone had made. We can certainly hand those out at the orphanages. Three were filled with assorted fabric. Those will go to Days for Girls Uganda, not because they will use them but because they are affiliated with the YWCA tailoring school and will be able to give them the fabric for their students. Then came the last two duffle bags…

USED BRAS, PANTIES and LINGERIE.

I kid you not. We have two large duffle bags filled with used underwear. 

Okay, I exaggerate. There are also three sets of very used, badly pilled boys’ pyjamas.

So here is my rant. Why on earth would anyone think that used underwear would be something worthwhile to send to Uganda? Why would the Ugandans want it? And how on earth are we supposed to distribute them? 

“Oh, I notice you are not wearing a bra. Lucky for you I happen to have two duffle bags filled with used bras in the van. Please come and select one.”

Give me a break.

A few years ago, I came to Uganda in March with Mum and a lady that we saw each year was wearing MY hat that I had donated to Value Village the previous year. It was an unusual pink straw hat so the chance of it being someone else’s hat was very slim. There is a book called “The Blue Sweater” that deals with the concept of our leftovers being sent to Africa. Drive down any street or visit any market and you’ll see people with tarps on the ground covered with used clothes sent from the West. Containers full of them travel across the ocean to stock these markets and clothe the men, women and children in various African nations. It’s part of their market and economy. 

But that doesn’t forgive the idea of sending used underwear and such old crappy pyjamas that no-one would ever make their children wear them in a container half way across the world.

When people ask if they can donate items, I usually say no unless I have a specific market to give them to like the sports jerseys we brought for Youth Sport Uganda. However, I went through all those jerseys. There were many that were thrown away because they were ripped or badly stained. Who would want them? 

Poor little Africans. They have nothing so let’s give them our crap that we don’t want anymore because it’s too used to be useful to us. I would never be seen in it/I would never put my child into it.

I tell people that if you would be too embarrassed to give it to a neighbour or if you would have to preface the giving of the items with “I know it’s a bit worn out/stained/ripped but…” then don’t give it to me. The Ugandans don’t want it either. Why would they? 

Please, don’t send your crap. No-one wants it. Not even the poor little Africans. They have enough arriving on their shores without having more arriving with all the mzungu who land on a daily basis. Sheesh.