Whiskey Baby
Whiskey Baby |
Discarded plastic whiskey bottles go a long way here. Entrepreneurs collect them, fill them with
sweetened food coloring mixed with water and sell them to bus passengers who hang out of the
windows at the many stops along their journey.
The travelers yell out to the vendors, while the vendors are yelling out
to the passengers, pushing their wares.
Somehow the transaction is completed despite the cacophony. Small children in the hospital corridors
toss back swigs of water in these Mozambican-style water bottles. When I first arrived, I wasn’t sure what to
make of all the toddlers drinking what I thought was some kind of clear
alcohol. I had started to wonder if my secondary project should be a children’s
AA program.
But the most creative and heart warming use of these bottles
are the toys created from what we would regard as refuse. A group of boys in my neighborhood cut out a
square section on the front, secured elastic bands across the length, and
fashioned guitars. There was actually
sound, and not all that bad, when you consider that the entire effort had its
beginnings as garbage. Dried strips of
pineapple leaves served as shoulder straps.
A halfway decent sound, utility and trend setting recycling, all from a
discarded item.
Usually the whiskey bottles are outfitted with wheels made
from the red covers of medicine bottles and turned into cars. As many people here are on HIV medicines,
TARV, these empty bottles are a familiar site, littering the yards and
streets. Four bottle tops serve as
wheels placed on either a whiskey bottle, also a common item littering the
streets, or on the original plastic rectangular medicine container. Personally, I prefer the whiskey bottle
model. Think sports car with oversized
drag racing tires compared to a Buick station wagon, the kind my mother drove
around with her brood of six unruly kids.
(We also were known to hang out of the windows, yelling, on our annual
winter trips down south. But there were
no vendors to yell back to us. Or sell us sugar water. Though I do remember our
antics did result in numerous stops at Stuckey’s for pecan and key lime
pie. And of course, this reward only
increased the frequency and decibel level of our howling.)
Boys and Their Cars |
And, little girls, seemingly being genetically disposed to care-
taking, this half of the knee high population sees empty whiskey bottles and
immediately thinks baby dolls. Cast off
pieces of hair, store bought braids that were formally woven into their
mother’s or sister’s heads as sculpted works of art, (now also trash remnants
littering the roads), are inserted into the bottle opening to create a baby
doll. Within minutes the children are
loving these ‘baby dolls’ and carrying them on their back, wrapped in a tight
cloth, as their mothers did with them.
Whiskey Baby Love |
The best thing about these toys is the lack of
attachment. Important at the time for
entertainment, and having provided an opportunity for creativity,
resourcefulness and construction skills, once the kids lose interest, the toys
revert back to disparate pieces of trash, once again taking their place as
litter in the yards and streets. It’s
like the parallel universe of the toys on the Lost Island in the Rudolph
Christmas movie. There is no guilt, no
sadness, no crying children or crying
toys, no need to rescue and repair these items.
It is just trash, utilized in its original intent, again by kids seeking
to play and then back to trash. Plain
and simple.
Parents do not mob toy stores to purchase the latest
must-have item for these kids.
Children’s rooms are not amassed with playthings, collected, kept on
shelves, shoved in plastic bins and closets, under beds, and in attics. (Children here don’t have shelves in their
rooms. Actually, they don’t have
rooms. And attics don’t exist either,
just so you know. ) Kids don’t cry when
their toys are lost or left behind.
These kids simply don’t have toys, the way our kids do, or the
connection and regard for such items.
And, it doesn’t seem to be such a bad or sad thing. Nor do these kids seem any less happy with
their trash-made cars and dolls.
A friend of mine became so sad when I told him about these Whiskey Babies. He told me he had never imagined there were little girls in the world without dolls. In a world where life is tenuous, when the focus is on the here and now, when life is lived not on the fringes but clinging to the threads, the plastic whiskey bottles that drown out the pain in the adult world can oddly enough bring about joy for their children.