Far from home and surrounded by the Red Sea, desert, and wild animals of East Africa—my teacher, Cailin Molina, began her 120-day adventure in the city of Djibouti [Juh-Boo-tee], located in the Horn of Africa.

Upon arrival she was greeted with a strong hot and humid breeze and a warm welcome from other service members. “From 2021 to 2022 the Air Force Reserves sent me to Camp Lemonnier, a U.S. Base in Djibouti City, Djibouti,” says Tech. Sgt. (Technical Sergeant) Molina, a third-grade teacher at Immaculate Heart.

 “You’re killing me, Smalls” is a famous line from the 1993 baseball movie “The Sandlot.” In September, I met some of the now grown up cast from the movie. Tom Guiry (Smalls), Marty York (Yeah-Yeah) and Victor DiMattia (Timmy) were at an autograph signing event at Harley’s Toys & Comics at Tucson Mall. All of the actors let me call them by their movie character names when I interviewed them.

 In 2019, the city of Tucson recorded a grand amount of 2500 tons of plastic reaching the local landfill daily and 720,000 tons of plastic reaching the landfill yearly. Plastic has become one of the most prominent and popular materials used in almost every industry from packaging to electronics—to the point where it is almost impossible to walk out of a local grocery store without buying at least one product containing plastic in or on it. Although plastic can be useful, it is very harmful.