cultural anthropologist?

Here is a picture of Dayton shaving. But that is not all blog friends, that is not all.

So many things to notice in this picture. First, Dayton himself. Why is he shaving outside? Because in his small apartment there is no place with enough natural light. Why is he not embarrassed? Because everybody is in the same boat. Why shaving at all? Because my man is vain - there are no two ways about it, he likes to look good. I think this same day he went and got his head shaved. Notice that he's dry shaving, which when I said, "Ow," he shrugged and said he's used to it. He'll take some pain to be looking good.

Notice the chair. That's the kind of chair almost everybody has everywhere. Flip-flops - same thing - except, dress code is a very big deal. Traditionally in Liberia, Americo-Liberians (the freed slaves who ended up as colonizers of Liberia) always refused to wear the traditional clothing of 95% of the population - it set them apart. And since they had a stranglehold on the economy and all good things until 1980, lots of people wanted to look like them. Anybody upwardly mobile now wears closed shoes - immaculately polished, in addition to long pants and neatly pressed shirt. They look, I think, ridiculous in this setting.

Notice the dirt ground - it's hard-packed, and Dayton and his neighbor Asha keep it neatly swept more than once a day. There under the tree is sometimes a table and chair where Gabriel, the other neighbor (probably his feet to the far left in the center), has his daughters do homework. Their attention span is rather short, and the table and chair usually get abandoned and then abused by neighbor kids. That big black container in the back? A water tank. I don't know who it belongs to and how much it costs - I know it's not where Dayton gets his water - he carries it considerably further. The buckets and containers you see - always plastic - are usually carried on heads, even by young children. Amazing skills.

The woman with the pink skirt - that's a lappa. Very traditional to wear, though if she were going out and about (she's probably carrying water to shower) she would wear that pink one wrapped around another one - lappas are layered usually (I noticed when mine flew open a little revealingly and I wondered how people avoided that).

People going about their business in very close proximity. While you acknowledge your friends, you also don't pay attention to everybody in order to have some privacy. Though I know people can see into Dayton's apartment when I'm bathing, nobody would ever acknowledge that. The first time I spent the night at Dayton's house, I was in there brushing my teeth and stepped out to see Asha's son Chuku walking in the door with his friends, clearly looking for Dayton and so extremely shocked to see me he could not even move.

Here's a picture of Chuku from last time I was there -he's a funny kid. He sleeps right on the other side of where Dayton & I sleep, with only a thin wall between us and corrugated metal sheet roof. Let's just say, we probably know a lot about each other.

One day he was talking to me and Asha teased him, "You like her?" Yes, he said. "Dayton gonna beat you, boy!"

It was one of those really uncomfortable moments. Please do not sexualize me to a 2-year-old. If you don't really want your kid being nice to me, tell him to go do something else. If it's about you being jealous of me being with Dayton (which I got the impression of more than once), just deal with it. He doesn't want you. But mostly it's about the culture of violence - which I could only get a few people to understand from my point of view. "OK, let's see, you raise a child by beating them and threatening regularly - parents, teachers, etc. Then they get bigger and they beat other people. And if in a war with a gun, they will just extend that to killing everybody without a bigger gun."

Dayton, to his credit, asked, "What do you recommend when a child is being naughty then?" and we talked about time outs, taking away privileges - but even circumventing the problems by having open communication, clear expectations, and their basic needs - such as for parental attention - met. I could see he wasn't completely convinced, but he didn't roll on the floor laughing his ass off like the first time I told the teachers that hitting and threatening kids is not an effective teaching strategy. OK, he wasn't convinced yet, but the whole reason we got together is his passionate working for peace, so he'll be convinced. I've got my ways.

Do I miss him like crazy now and wish I could be there with him right now? Uh, hell yeah.

Is this me procrastinating because Nation and Commemoration is just a wee bit boring? Right again.