Earth Day...

As many (probably most) of you know, today is Earth Day.

Azerbaijan is one of the most polluted countries in the world. It sits on the shores of the Caspian Sea - the most polluted body of water on the planet. Of all the countries in the world, it is one that could really use the message Earth Day promotes - environmental awareness, not polluting the land and sea, taking care of the world.

Armed with that knowledge, I decided to make Earth Day the subject of my weekly conversation club with university students. Now, these students are amazing. They are the people that I believe will start many of the changes this country needs. When we did a club about gender roles, the boys were the ones to say it wasn't fair that girls can't do the same things they can - like study abroad, go to football (soccer) games, or even go to restaurants. When we talked about the US election in November, they all had incredible ideas and thoughts about both candidates, about democracy, about what they want the world to be. In almost all of our club meetings, they usually start with the idea I had planned on spending an hour getting them to. It's awesome. Like I said, they are a great group of students.

I kinda thought my Earth Day lesson would end up being redundant for them. I figured they would already know all about it and have the answers and ideas I wanted to share with them. But it was still an important enough topic that I wanted to address it. Imagine my surprise when none of them knew what Earth Day was. Wow. Instead of my typical problem with them - that they know more than I expect them to - they knew far less that I had expected. OK. I could still work with it. I am great at improvising.

I started again from a new angle. I asked them for reasons that we might celebrate Earth Day. The first guess? "Because that is the day the Earth was made?"

Oh dear.