No, sir, not Junk!

"Junk! Junk!
No, sir, not Junk!
Junk! Junk!
No, ma'am, not Junk!
Bricabracs, brickbats
Knitting needles, Knick- knacks!
Kickshaws! Curios!
Camisoles! Cameos!
But... Junk!
Junk!
No, sir, not... Junk!"
~Excerpt from "Dandelion Wine," by Ray Bradbury

Recently, as I was reading some Bradbury, I ran across this dreamy little chant. While the story it comes from is supposed to take place in a locale that seems like late 19th or early 20th century America, it reminded me of modern day West Africa. The chant recalls the realities of a place so poor it can not afford to be wasteful. Soap bottles, and mayo jars; inter-tubes, tomato paste cans, school notebooks, and pesticide containers- all useful to a common African. Pages are torn out of school childrens' notebooks, and used by merchants as a wax paper of sorts for handling locally made cakes; while mayo jars, if collected, are valuable enough to be resold to those wishing to reuse them for homemade peanut butter, nuts and bolts, or other foods and odds and ends. Tomato paste cans become a serving place for the natives' traditional soap; while the well-loved, modern motorcycles' pierced inter-tubes are cut into long, stretchy cords, that used to strap a load of goods together for transport. We say the United States loves efficiency, and I think this is true, but I think here, in this land of people struggling to survive, and if possible develop, I experience a different type of efficiency. The people here are slow to act as if they think just any old thing is "junk," or trash. Africans would consider a Western landfill a good second hand hardware stores of sort. Here it is part of everyday life to reuse resources of many sorts, even though not all possible resources are reused.
I admire the creative reuse of resources by the people of Benin, West Africa. I believe that wealthier nations can indeed take a page or two from the books of less developed nations. I believe that traditions that come from an understanding of humankind's connection to the natural world can help us to be more efficient and conservative in our use and reuse of resources. I say this because I realize it is not just poverty that drives locals to save things, and make treasures from what Western people might call junk; no, no, it is a way of life that has been passed down through many generations of West Africans. They seem to understand that if one conserves the world's energy, then you help to conserve your own energy in the future. The idea that all things take our energy comes from a people that draw water from a well, thus understand using water recklessly will means more work tomorrow. While the Beninese are at times very wasteful in some respects, I believe that they may be able to offer part of a new, but ancient way and example on how to conserve the earth's resources. I believe that to live well in the future it'd do us good to continue to research more efficient technologies and such, but I think it'd do us well to embrace helpful traditions and ways of life that can be found in our world's large cultural heritage. Yes, I've taken a page from postmodern philosopher - there is a need to move forward as a world community, but we can not totally abandon our community's traditions.