I live in a country where voluntary work is not important, but sometimes it is so compulsory that we don't have a choice but to do it or join people who are doing it. I love doing voluntary work not because I want people to see me doing it but because it shows that I care about my environment and people around me. Meanwhile, while doing voluntary work, some people think you are overreacting or overdoing things, which is not true.
I lived in an apartment with my sister when we were single; if you had lived in such an apartment before, you would understand that what I am about to say in this article, and to crown it all, it was a student area, and most student areas are always dirty and unkempt just because some of them always claim big girls and big boys to clean the environment.
I and my sister were also students, but part-time ones anyway. We work and go to school at the same time, which makes most of the students in the area who are full-time students think they are more relevant than us part-time students.
the image is mine
It happens that most students in our compound don’t like to clean, and that was telling on our environment because everywhere is always dirty.
My sister and I don’t like seeing the dirt, so instead of overlooking it just like everyone in the house, we planned to clean our part, which is the back of our window from the beginning of the house to the end and the toilet as well.
I practically clean the back of our window every day and then wash the toilet three times a week, which my sister would take over the next week, and that was how we voluntarily did house cleaning for the whole compound, which is full of young girls and boys.
Some of them say we are overdoing it and everything we do is eye service, while some will appreciate it even though they never thought of helping for once, but because the toilet smells fresh to me whenever I want to bathe, I don’t care about what they were saying as long as the place is good for me and everyone to use.
Some years passed, and I moved out of my sister’s apartment to get mine close to where I was working. My sister told me she couldn’t continue the cleaning because she couldn’t do it alone, so I suggested that they collect someone that would be cleaning, and everyone should pay the person.
the image is mine
Some months later, my sister told me that most of them don’t pay the woman for the job, which made her stop coming to clean, and now the environment is too dirty, which made people in the neighborhood report the house to the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Officers.
I wasn’t surprised that happened because when you are surrounded by dirty people that is what will happen at the end, the apartment which I moved in we always share the cleaning routine which the landlady oversees it by herself to make sure everyone partake in the cleaning. After I left my sister’s compound, I never did any voluntary work because the apartment I moved into with my husband had already arranged someone that would be cleaning the compound.
Though sometimes my husband always cleans the compound whenever those women don’t come early because he doesn’t like to see it dirty, the only time you see me doing any volunteer work now is whenever I help my neighbor to pack her clothes if it rains, and that is if I am at home and she’s not.
