birds

I'm consolidating my life list--birds that i have seen in various places. I also overhead some people complaining about dating. Oddly enough, the way my brain works (a bit like a ping pong ball) weaver birds came to mind.

There are many species of weaver bird; i'm still checking which one i saw in Cameroon. They build purse-shaped nests out of plant material, usually strips of palm fronds. The palm trees around the country were often spindly-looking--not the lush images you see in tropical beach photos of Hawaii or touristic posters. The birds nearly kill trees by stripping off all the leaf material.

Then they load up the nearly-empty fronds with the hanging nests. It can look a bit decorative, especially on non-palm trees. If you have ever seen a pomegranate tree in winter with the ripe red fruit hanging on the bare branches, you've seen a similar silhouette. The main difference is that weaver bird nests are grey-ish instead of a vivid red, and a cacophony follows wherever they go.

Male weaver birds are the ones who weave the nests.

Somehow they convince a female weaver bird to come check out the nest they have built. My understanding is that she does her best to destroy the thing. If she is unsuccessful, they live happily ever after (until the breeding season is over). If she does destroy the nest, the poor bloke has lost his chance with her and must start over to try and woo another.

Sometimes, despite the male's best architectural designs and the female's careful choosing, the nests do end up on the ground. Maybe a human decided to chop down that bamboo stick. Maybe there is a particularly bad storm and the nest is blown away. Maybe a snake or another predator gets to the nest. No way the birds could have predicted that; they did their best with the knowledge they had.

I wonder how eagles and Canada geese choose each other? Mating for life, their choice is of greater significance than that of serially monogamous birds yet i've never heard of them testing a nest first.

garments

There are clothes in my closet that i do not wear.

I suppose that is true for many people.

What i am getting used to again is that i'm not wearing them NOT because they don't fit or because they are out of style, but mostly because they are for (very) warm weather and it is currently cold. Sometimes i do wonder if i'll ever wear them again--my favorite sundresses from Cameroon, for example. They are comfortable and they are blue, two qualities most of my favorite clothes share, however they are not the most fashionable garments around. I'm not particularly trendy and i don't choose my clothes because they are (or are not) fashionable, but now that i'm around a full-length mirror i have realized that these dresses aren't...flattering...particularly. They are very simple, very loose, shifts. The prints are bold and bright. They are perfect for the tropics where air movement is essential in the humid heat and the bright blue fabric contrasted nicely with iron-rich dirt and green plants. I'm not so sure i have the requisite confidence to wear them in hip, sexy Southern California.

Meanwhile, they hang in my closet taking up space. Should i give them away? i wonder. Would that benefit anyone: would anyone wear them? Should i cut them up for a quilt? Should i have left them in Cameroon? I can't undo that decision--and i miss some of the clothes i did leave there! I can't find things just like them because they're three years old.

Clothing choices here *are* plentiful, and i can find anything in my size. Clothes shopping here is easier than going to Mokolo, the imported-used-clothing market in Yaounde. Very nice things from Korea, Germany and other countries were available there, but if you saw a skirt or shoes you liked and they weren't in your size, too bad. No other choices. Here, there are changing rooms so that you can try things on instead of giving it your best guess. Here, you can say "I'm just looking" and the salespeople believe you. Here, other than sales (where the crowds freak me out) anytime is pretty much as good as the next for someone who is not a fashionista. There were definitely better times to go to Mokolo: right after a shipment there were more options but prices were relatively high. Right before a shipment there were fewer choices but more bargains. It's been quite a jolt to go from paying about $2 for something to paying much, much more here!

I think i'll let the dresses hang for a little longer, at least until it is feasibly warm enough to wear them again. And if i don't wear them then...well, i have five months to get used to the idea of letting go.

my mother found my blog

Actually, i told her about it. We were talking about the various merits and demerits of blogs, & i mentioned that i had started one and gave her the url.

She questioned if perhaps i was being a bit harsh. About what? i asked--about the idle loafers in front of bars (see "culture is how you look"). Perhaps they work at night, she said.

Okay, maybe. Maybe they work at night. That doesn't change the fact that during the day they loafed at bars and made nasty comments to women walking by. If you've read any of the #1 Ladies' Detective Agency books, think of the young men who work at the garage and add some R-rated material.

So, here is my caveat: all of this is my opinion. The contents are merely my observations and i'm not trying to be objective. Perhaps i'll begin using my historiography training in a few months to write more well-rounded, objective, positive observations but i'm not trying to convey any other than what comes to mind at the moment, because that's what processing is.

A man i respect greatly read all of my newsletters. He also got my quasi bi-weekly updates. He said, when i got home, that he often wondered what was really going on in my life, and what i wasn't saying. He wondered if my newsletters were censored.

Censoring is a difficult word to weigh as it carries highly negative connotations. There were newsletter readers and they were not oppressive, but i did feel a burden to give an overall positive impression with each communiqué. Was that censorship? I don't think so. I still feel a burden to give good impressions--isn't that what humans usually want to do? And the readers checked spelling and layout, too; it wasn't only linguistic content that they checked, and i found that very helpful.

So. There is Truth. It has many sides. I don't claim to know all of them and have a whole picture, but my bits ought to count, too.