Volume #2 Issue #1 May 2005 - Split Pants

I recently sent home gifts to one of my childhood friends who was expecting her first child (by the way congratulation Teri and Brain on the birth of baby Peter).  I am told that when Teri first opened it she was convinced I was playing some type of joke on her.  But the truth is I sent her a very practical everyday baby necessity for this part of the world.  Split pants – the latest, and maybe even the oldest thin in Central Asian Fashion.  These are nothing more than a pair of children’s pants where the crotch seam is not sewn in.  They are intentionally made and sold this way to help new parents cut down on the overwhelming North American cost of diapers.  It means that a child is always “ready to go”.  All they have to do is squat and the job is done.  For us it means that was we wander around town all you see is a bunch of little bums hanging out of their pants. 

 

Even in the dead of winter when a child is clothed in so many layer for warmth, each layer is split and a bright red cold bottom can be seen.  At first, like Teri, I thought it was a joke or a coincidence.  Maybe many of the children in my neighborhood were from poorer families and were just trying to get the most out of a pair of hand-me-downs.  But as I learned to watch my step outside I realized that it is a real pat of the Central Asian culture.  Children’s pants are split and they are living expectantly for what will come.