قصة كونكت بلس الترم الثانى "امير ....
‘Amir, can
you check the washing machine? I think the wash is finished.’
‘Yes, it’s
finished, Grandma. I’ll take the clothes out for you.’
Amir took
the laundry up to the roof.
From there,
he could see the beautiful Nile and the village below him. Amir looked down.
Trucks transported plastic bottles of water and women carried their shopping
home from the market in plastic bags. He could also see plastic bottles
floating down the river.
‘Let’s hang
up these clothes quickly. It’s really hot up here today.’ said Grandma. A large
seagull landed in a nest on top of the neighbor’s building.
‘Look at the
seagull, Grandma! She’s so beautiful,’ said Amir.
Grandma
nodded her head. ‘Yes, she is,’
Grandma
answered. ‘All of nature is beautiful. We must respect it.’
Amir then
noticed something horrible: there was a plastic bag around the seagull’s leg.
‘Oh no! She’s in trouble,’ said Amir.
Amir’s
tablet was on the table where he sometimes does his homework in the evening. He
picked it up and took a picture of the poor bird. Amir felt sad.
Grandma saw
how Amir was feeling. She put her arm around him.
‘It’ll be
OK, Amir.’ ‘No, it won’t. We have to do something to help. People
are using
too much plastic and it’s harming the birds.’
‘You’re a
smart boy, Amir. How can we help other people understand
this?’ his
grandma asked him.
That night,
Amir sent the picture of the seagull to some of his friends from school. They
were all very worried about the bird. “We need to help her,” his friend Waleed
texted back. ‘But what can we do?
Amir wanted
to take action. He started researching on the internet and discovered that
people use billions of plastic bags and bottles in Egypt every year. A lot of
them end up in the Nile or the sea. So, he sent a message to his friends.
The next day,
Amir, Waleed, and some other friends met at Amir’s house. They talked about
different things that they could do. Amir took notes on his tablet:
1-Use cloth
bags. We can give them to people at the market.
2-Use
biodegradable bags.Waleed’s dad can use them at his store.
3-Clean up
the riverbanks. Anissa’s dad can ask the fishermen to help us.
4-Contact
children in other towns. Dalia can send emails to her cousins.
Amir
explained his ideas to his grandma. She volunteered to help, too, “I have some
old cotton cloth, Amir.” I can sew some
shopping
bags for you. Will that help ?
“Yes,
Grandma, thank
you! That
will help a lot!”
Waleed went
to his dad’s grocery store. Dad, please help us. Let’s stop using plastic bags
in our store. We can use biodegradable ones instead.
“Waleed, why
should we do that?” his father asked. Waleed showed him Amir’s picture of the
seagull. His dad looked sad.OK, Waleed. I’ll help you.
We ‘ll start using these biodegradable bags. We must help the
river.
Anissa’s dad
works at the market. She showed him Amir’s picture of the seagull and told him
all about their plans. I’ll ask the fishermen to help us take the plastic out
of the river. They’ll help us. The water is important for all of us,’ he said.
Dalia sent
emails to all her cousins. They lived in other villages around Egypt. ‘Dalia,
this is a great idea,’ her cousin Mariam wrote back. ‘We will be happy to help
in our village, too.’ A couple days later, Amir went onto his grandma’s roof to
get her laundry. He
saw the
colorful cloth she was going to use to sew the cotton
shopping
bags. He started folding it and putting it in the laundry basket. Then he saw
the seagull in her nest. He remembered the
plastic
around her leg. Suddenly, two baby seagulls put their heads out of the nest.
Amir smiled. He knew that he and his friends together could make a change.
