14

bringing dishonor to the motherland etc. The real reason being of course that they don't want a stranger poking his nose into their bribe taking. I had no such object merely wanting to photograph the way commerce is carried on and goods transported. But a photograph is often the scapegoat for other peoples guilts. (You take a photograph on a New York street with hundreds of people in the view finder and one man rushes at you screaming, feeling you are personally pursuing him (probably an illegal alien.) You can take a portrait of a group of 50 people and each one will feel the camera is pointed only at him. Such is our ego.)

The photographers presence brings personal guilt to the fore.

15

The serving maid refuses to go to the door to get the bread from the bread man because he's muslim and there have been some violent muslim demonstrations a few days ago. I tell her to go and get it, she does grudgingly and then slams the door in his face. He brings the bread every morning at nine o'clock, a few loaves on a wooden board which he sets on the hallway floor and proceeds with a big knife to deftly slice into even sections. (cont) After the bread man, the barber comes with his rectangle wooden box and I sit on a low stool while he squats before me his knees touching mine on either side and lathers my face (no hot water). His face only a few inches away, left hand maneuvering my head as he shaves me with a straight razor, and his black eyes intent, lathers and shaves a second time. [Phrase in margin:] pausing to wipe the lather from the blade on his left arm. He's an unsmiling man and I have the impression [he] disapproves of me in some fashion, perhaps only the cultural gap wall. The shave is conducted in physical closeness