where did it go

WHERE DID IT GO


the other day when i was cleaning out our barn
the room where all that junk was stored
stored is of course not the right word
it looked like one of those pictures you see in
new york when the garbage folks go on strike

as i was looking at some of the bags contents
i started wondering
where do these tshirts go

i know ive been watching tv sometimes and there on
tv in some far corner of africa is someone with a
tshirt on that make you wonder
well at least makes me wonder
how did they get that tshirt

i mentioned this to my wife she that night
when she got home
note her ears were still bright red from burning
from my going through all that stuff in the barn

she said she had just heard an npr story on tshirts and
what happened to them
so i went online and watched it

so here could be the journey for one of the tshirts that we
donated to goodwill today

the tshirt goes to goodwill
if its a good one like here a ut shirt in good condition
it will go to the goodwill store to be sold
if it eventually doesnt sell it may go to a place
called the blue hanger in south austin
it use to be in a building that was blue so thats what its called
still
it will be sold by the lb

someone i know real well will spend hours there digging for that
bargain that find kinda like if you go to the diamond place in
arkansas to find that one diamond thats still in there

i will admit i have a ranch jacket that she found and paid for
the weight of the jacket
it looks brand new and is the warmest one ive ever owned
even warmer than old  blue
i call it old marron

the other direction the tshirt can go is to a large warehouse
eg on the east coast where sorters put it into one of three
stacks based on its condition
good ones go in one pile
semi good ones go into a pile for use as rags that you might
buy eg at home depot or lowes
real bad ones go into a pile and get ground up to be used
as stuffing in things like pillows and toys

then the good pile gets bundled up in large bales and are
shipped overseas
eg to africa where a middle person buys bales and
bales of them

the middle person in the example given has a bale opening where
local vendors come and as the bale is opened they attack
it like sharks and pull out the ones they want
they pay a few pennies for each shirts

the middle person makes a good  living in this foreign
africa country
the vendors also make a good living

the vendors take the tshirts and sell them to shop owners
who look for good clean ones with bright colors
who then sell them to the local folks

the xl tshirts dont fit people in africa
they dont eat all the bad stuff we eat you know
so these xl tshirts get altered
the sides are slit opened
the bottoms cut off
then colorful or unusual pieces off other tshirts are then
sewn onto these tshirts and the size will then fit
the african population

if you stop and take stock on how many jobs and how
much money is generated by that tshirt thats donated
you realize its an economy to itself

one reporters friend had a old soccer jersey with his
name on the back that he donated to goodwill
a unique one of a kind tshirt
saw someone wearing it in africa one day when he was
visiting there
a surreal moment im sure

so i guess some good a lot of good may come of our
donating that tshirt to goodwill
the possibility of helping people get work here in the us
and in africa makes it worthwhile
unless
my wife she goes to that blue hanger place that place
where some goodwill stuff that wont sell goes
and finds that gem of a deal that diamond in the rough
oh look yall heres a perfectly good ut thirt

the circle begins
again

the organicgreen doctor