Nothing is Wasted

You are ushered into the new day by the crow of the cocks. As you begin your chores, you don't have to worry where to dispose your waste and leftovers. When cleaning out your kitchen, nothing is wasted. Left over grains will serve a breakfast for the flock of birds. Yam peels and vegetable stalk will feed the goats. The bones will feed the dogs while the pigs will take care of the rest. Nothing is wasted.

On the streets, the same rules almost apply. The roads aren't very busy, so to often find animals roaming and cleaning up the community. The animals have gotten used to the roads being not so busy. So they react strangely when a vehicle appears. Some of them get too startled to escape and are overrun by the vehicles. This time, men themselves do the clean up. They pick up the dying or dead animal as the case may be. Some end up in the market and some at home. however they choose to cleanup, nothing is wasted, even animal carcass.

Now I'm back home and planning breakfast. Then I remember that a neighbour offered us 'kuunu' a day before. This is one of the most fantastic drinks humanity has to offer. There's virtually no ingredient absent and almost no nutrient is missing. Since this great drink have no preservatives, they don't last more than a few days. Actually it's not that the drink evaporates, it only changes taste and smell. However there's another drink of choice-burukutu. You may modernize the name and call it BKT. Though I will never find sufficient reasons to take it, some need no reason at all. Just make it available and the rest is settled. While I am lamenting the fermentation of the graceful kuunu, some are rejoicing abut it's transformation to kuunu. Nothing is wasted, even expired kuunu can be served as BKT.

After, settling breakfast. I remember I need to do some cleaning. Pieces of paper, nylons, matchsticks, dried leaves have littered the vicinity. After much hesitation, summon courage to clean up, and behold there's nothing! Who helped with the clean up? There's no body around but I can see my neighbour's breakfast on fire. They don't fancy the 'kerosine' lifestyle we corpers are living. They cook with firewood and improvised tripod. Just before the firewood is ignited, they need materials that can burn easily. Nothing is wasted. All our waste served as fuel. I don't have to clean, they don't have to buy kerosine. It's a win-win.

If you're too tush, close your eyes on this one. Sometimes getting water could be real work. Having to climb down the hill and back up with a bucket or two isn't an instinctive thought. We conserve water alot. Sometimes after washing, we gather the waste water together. Just like I said, nothing is wasted. This water could help do a remarkable work in flushing the toilet. And if need arises for more water, we can take from our highly esteemed reservoir of clean water. Nothing, even waste water, is wasted.

I look forward to a time where nothing in it's real sense will be wasted. Sometimes we are literarily burning under the hot sun. If truly all waste would be put to use, there should be a way to channel the immerse heat from the sun to generate power. Air conditioners and refrigerators can run on this and it would be a paradise indeed. Already, there's a place where solar power is used to run a pumping machine serving a good number of indigenes. However, there's still a great deal of solar power wasting away.

Don't be offended when you pay me a visit and you see me pour leftovers just in front of my house. The self-cleaning system will be activated in a few minutes.

A Brand New Opportunity to Start Over

One thing this service year offers us is an opportunity to start our lives over again. Perhaps we have lived a life in the past that we are not to proud about, this is the perfect opportunity to start all over again. We have been given a new environment, a new opportunity to select who are friends are. We have a new accommodation void of the same distractions that we no longer have resistance to; we have a new environment that does not contain the same places where we pricked our fingers.

We absolutely do not have to rebuild the life that tore us apart here again. We have a privilege to make resolutions and stand by them. The truth here is no one really knows who you are. People begin to tag you only from your speech and what they see you do. No one knows that name that makes your head blow up; no one know what to say that will unleash the beast in you yet. No one knows anything until you do something; no one knows anything until you say something.

I am convinced that some of us have left really terrible lives back home. NYSC is not only an opportunity to serve Nigeria, it also serve us the opportunity to redefine our identity. This is a year for redefinition; this is a year for evaluation. We can make resolves and easily actualize them.

Truthfully, it would take us the same amount of energy and resources to continue our former or start a new life. We may decide to continue the former life of which we are not so proud or start up our dream life. You do not have to say the words that stair up memories and ignite desires. You can always talk about what you want.

You can help yourself by consciously choosing friends. Never succumb again to your weakness. This is a time to start over. Redefine who you are and change the course of your life forever.