Then vs Now; 20 years spanned environmental review.

While growing up, my Mum used to tell me and my siblings stories of her childhood and she never failed to highlight how the world has changed so much from what it used to be when she was a teen to what it was when she became a parent. She had stories of how the environment has transformed over the years and I always found those fascinating.

It has been a couple of years since those days and I've lived long enough to also spot some salient and self-evident differences in how the world was during my childhood and how it has changed between then and now that I'm already an adult. That difference is what I will be exploring and highlighting in this post.

How has your environment changed in the last 20 years?

Yeah! A million dollar question, right?

Let's get in;

1. Structural Difference.

After several years of being away from home, I remember being surprised by all the structures that were established in certain places when I finally traveled back home in November, 2023. A lot more houses were in our street and some of the bungalows got redeveloped into storey buildings.

When I was growing up in the same neighborhood, each compound had a very spacious playground for kids and teens. I grew up playing street football with my mates because we had spaces for that. However, a lot of those spaces are now converted into building sites.

Now, some compounds do not even have enough space that could be used as parking spots for tenants that has cars. That's just a highlight of how things has changed in town within 20 years.

2. Improved Waste Management Facilities.

15 -20 years ago, my family and a lot of other families in the part of the country I grew up had to depend on rainfall for our waste disposal. Anambra has these really huge gutters that are big enough to flood people to other places whenever it rained. We made it a thing to dump waste in those gutters whenever it was raining. The rain does the rest my flooding the waste to "wherever".

During dry seasons, wastes usually got dumped in farmlands that were not in use and in places that are not officially marked as dump sites. Well, that has really changed over the years. At the moment, very big industrial waste bins are placed all-over town and dump sites are officially marked out all-over town. The waste management agencies are also commissioned to oversee these waste bins and dump sites.

For the record, our waste management facilities still needs to be improved. However, we've experienced a really significant improvement within a 20 years span. At the moment, a lot of compounds have industrial waste bins where each tenant can dump his/her wastes and they pay someone to empty out the bins for the entire compound. That's a huge improvement.

3. Lots of Educated Folks.

Back in the day, we all saw taxi drivers, cyclists, carpenters, mechanics, etc, as folks who did not reach a high level of formal education. A lot of those just finished primary school before switching into any skill acquisition that suits what they want. Then, entering buses in town while on school uniform meant I will be getting discounts from the driver. A lot of people treated students and educated folks like mini gods.

At the moment, a lot has really changed in that regard. Being a student or even being a graduate is no longer a big flex. In fact, there is a recurring debate about "schools being scam" and a lot of educated folks struggle to side on the proposing or opposing side of the argument. Right now, a lot of people doing "menial jobs" in Nigeria are people who are learned and some even have academic degrees. I'm not sure of how I feel about that though. It's sad.

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That's the world we live in. Since change is a constant phenomenon, it's fairly obvious that there will always be some sort of change in how our environment is between now and then. Whether "then" is last night or a decade ago.

Thanks For Not Missing Any Full-stop or Comma.
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_{This is my entry to today's prompt on #mayinleo monthly prompt. Feel free to check out this announceement post and explore their prompt.}

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