If you knew Kata the way we do, you’ll know she absolutely adores animals. Pretty much any animal, for that matter.
I remember when she was about 3 years old, then a loaf of bread vanished. Poof! Gone!
I ended up finding her in the backyard, happily feeding our dogs. The bread was by no means a good choice since it caused our Labrador to break out into a rash, and we had to take her to the Vet to get her balanced again. We ended up explaining to her that dogs need certain types of food and giving them human food isn’t a good choice. Well, it took quite a few reprimands before she eventually stopped feeding them all sorts of human food items.
Anyway, that’s beside the point. The point I’m trying to make here is her love of animals.
Oh yes, that brings me back to another memory of when we went to visit my cousin on the farm. There, she also sneaked away with the dogs and fed them chips. Guess what? The dogs became her best friends there too. I guess her love language is food, haha.
Let’s put it this way, then I’ll continue with the actual story. If we had to live on a farm, she’d be out and about with the animals all day.
‘Great!’ I thought. If my daughter is excited about contributing positively, there’s no way I’m letting this opportunity slip through my fingers.
Although my wife and I have been super busy lately, I made sure there was some time available on Saturday, and off we went! Many of you may know we love spending time at the beach, and even though it was Mission Clean-Up, I was happy to go and catch some lovely, fresh, salty beach air.
There are clean-up crews that regularly comb our beaches, so I wasn’t expecting to fill bags of trash. If I’d left it to Kata, she’d empty out our drawer of carrier bags, haha.
So, off we went to one of our favorite spots at Big Bay, situated on the coast of Cape Town. Kata was Super Excited about helping the fish and we got our carrier bags, ready to clean.
As expected, there weren’t large chunks of trash, but the smaller pieces, oh wow! Cigarette buds, bottle caps, cap rings, lollipop sticks, and straws were our main finds. I couldn’t believe how many there were.
Not only did it feel great to contribute positively, but Kata was also in her element! She got especially excited when she managed to get pieces that almost got sucked up by the ocean. She’d regularly run to me, screaming with excitement at her finds, super stoked at the fact that she’s saving the Fishy’s lives.
We almost managed to fill 2 bags along a 150m/164yd stretch. What surprised me most though, was the weight. Although I didn’t end up weighing it, I estimated it to be around 3 to 4 kgs (or 6.6 to 8.8lb). We do need to include the fact that some of it had bits of sand stuck to it, as well as some pieces of rope that would have contained moisture would have added to the weight. It’s still a lot of trash, nonetheless.
