From Trash to Treasure
I remember back when I was little, we lived on a compound in Saudi Arabia. As a child of 5 or 6 one of my joys was collecting little “treasures” on the compound grounds. All we had was a playground with a couple trees and a sandy floor. The rest of the courtyard consisted of a tiled open area in the center of apartment buildings. I remember coming in from outside with my pockets full of my little treasures - dried orange peels, broken glass, beads, colorful pieces of plastic. Before we left the country at the age of 7, I had the maturity to realize the assorted treasures weren’t worth keeping and sadly disposed of my quaint collection. In another country south of Saudi Arabia, our first house was surrounded by sand - like a big sandbox with a few rocks in it. This time we stayed in our own villa but like the compound it was surrounded by a courtyard with a tall cement wall. Outside of that wall, the wind would howl, whipping up the sand - and trash, and more sand - and more trash, and