Flex Mentallo

My Village Beyond the tiny compound that is Mir Para, with it's daily dramas, I continue to document the life of the village with "my" camera. (Last time I gave the camera I used to Latif in return for his hospitality; this time I gave it's replacement to Lucina.) Here are some of those photos, ending with a sequence from the wedding of a neighbor's daughter.

I'm tempted to leave you with the impression that I really am this popular, but once again some politics were at work, Latif (bless him) ensuring that neighbors and cousins all got to feel included. So really, I'm less a person in my own right, than a strange form of celebrity. I am divided into many pieces, like the harvest loaf (or gingerbread man) that supplanted the annual ritual sacrifice of the sacred king in Frazer's "The Golden Bough". But what a way to go!

April 6th was my 63rd birthday, my trip carefully timed to ensure I celebrated it with a few of my closest friends.

Right on, Pat!

I will spare you more than this briefest of insights into the family drama that caused constant upset, except to say that nothing could be done without seemingly excluding someone or other, so I worked hard to give attention to everyone, or at least had a lot of fun trying, while fully appreciating that the real concern was not my attention, but the fact that attention was given or not.

Irina and Lija also wanted out for a while. So the deal I made with Latif, a devil's contract really, to make sure Irina and Evina were favored equally, meant that I went out shopping twice in the same day, the second time after Irina got home from school.