Venezuelans get creative amid shortages

Cloth diapers, baking soda to make deodorant and vinegar to mop the floor is not the shopping list of an eco-friendly hipster but how an increasing number of resourceful Venezuelans are making do in a time of severe shortages.

With the South American country entering what looks to be a third year of empty store shelves amid a deepening economic crisis, Venezuelans are turning to old-time, all-natural methods to replace their favorite products.

At a smog-choked makeshift market under a downtown overpass, street vendors compare their preferred method of keeping the insects away, now that DEET bug spray is no longer available. The matter has taken on new urgency as a painful mosquito-borne illness, chikungunya, sweeps the country.

One vendor says she cooks up clove-scented oil and puts it near her windows. Another uses vitamin B lotion as repellent. And a bank attendant doing a bit of shopping chimes in that she burns citronella candles.

Lilian Ribas, who makes a living selling brightly colored tank-tops and hot pants, burns a coil of chrysanthemum incense to protect herself and her two sons. It's not a question of health or environmental concern, but of making do.

"Here, you just have to use what you find. There's no more question of choice," she said.

Largest oil reserves

Home to the world's largest proven oil reserves, Venezuela is nothing if not a consumerist culture. In the 1970s, Venezuelan shoppers in Miami earned the nickname dame dos, Spanish for "give me two." And with the highest per capita gas consumption in Latin America, the country isn't about to win any recognition for its environmentalism.

But that same oil dependence has led to a cycle of booms and busts that make Venezuelans especially adept at improvising during tough times.

"You have had a century of ups and downs, and instability. People get used to certain products. When they are not available they figure out a different way," said David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America who has spent decades researching in Venezuela.

To get the creative juices flowing, blogs and newspapers have begun running instructions for making everything from vinegar-based cleaning products to condensed milk using ingredients that are still available, either because they're made locally or an importer has worked out a deal.

Alicia Colmenarie, a retired preschool teacher, blends baking soda with lemon to make a deodorant stand-in for herself and her teenage daughter. She reminisced about her nice-smelling, quick-drying Dove antiperspirant while clutching six eucalyptus stalks she bought at the market to burn at home as a mosquito repellent.

Second nature

A few blocks away, a saleswoman in a children's store had just restocked a display of cloth diapers. Clerks say the diapers sell out every month, as the disposable alternative becomes harder to find.

"People are having to go back to the old ways," saleswoman Eufrocena Meneses said.

Co-worker Carmen De Leal said: "I had my daughter 32 years ago, and I always used cloth diapers and washed them. Now the women have gotten lazy."

In Cuba, Venezuela's closest ally, making do has become second nature. There, a population grappling with shortages substitutes lard for olive oil, punches holes in water bottles to make showerheads, and keeps vintage cars running with surprisingly functional homemade batteries.

(China Daily 11/21/2014 page11)