Toy

Oto-Mashine
Mama says go outside and play.
Dada is no deferent.
My parents had my buttocks whipped.
The best toys they could offer me was the sand
and mud in the compound.
The kids in the movies I watched intimidated
me with the fun the had with their toys, that
ignited my creative mind.
Alongside my street kids we turned into thugs,
ranging from stealing raw materials for making
our toys to scavenging the refuse bin.
We innovated loads of toys for ourselves.
Some of 'em are;
Automobiles,
Super man,
'Baram' (a round toy)
Football players made from bottle corks, the list
is endless.
The fun was real, the kids in the movies would
have wished for our toys even more.

I'll drive you through the memory lane of one of
my favourite toy as kid.
It was the constructed 'Oto-Mashin'(cars) we
made as kids.
The materials were;
Barb wires- we stole 'em from our neighbours
fences. We used our bare hands to cut them,
we folded 'em back and forth till the broke.
Second was the copper wires- We scavenged
'em from the 'bolas' (refuse dumps)
Third was the tires- we had 'em made from flip
flops by placing small opened empty tins on
fire. When they get very hot, we press them
against the flip flops to obtain our circular tires.
We constructed various 'Oto-Mashines'. We
broke the barb wires to form the car parts and
we bound them with copper wires.
The steerings were made as long as from the
car on the ground to were our hands could grip
them.
We pushed them and they moved like true cars.
We had other accessories attached to them,
like; touch bulbs used as head lights, radio fans
used as car engines
We drove around the streets, sometimes we
were as stubborn as driving beside the
highways.
I swear automobile companies could have
employed me at age ten if they came across
me then.
I wish I was a kid again for just a day to
reminisce such surreal of fun.