I’ve been thinking about what we saw yesterday and how I was uncomfortable and avoided looking at the women. I feel bad about that. I don’t blame myself for reacting in the moment. It’s just that post-evaluation teaches me about myself, society, etc. I couldn’t look at them because looking just validated their position on the lowest rung which is a place without dignity and one which can be violated by others without shame. Even though these women were on display as part of their job, it’s quite clear in my mind that they are considered to occupy a shameful position in society and I felt like looking at them only reinforced my position over theirs: like an animal captive in a zoo. But then I think about how not looking at them is like turning your head from something so disgraceful that it deserves not even the dignity of acknowledgment. Which is it? For me it’s the former. I didn’t want to gawk at them making them feel uncomfortable, validating their position in society. In reality though, I don’t know what they thought - I have no idea if they felt in the least uncomfortable - because I was just transferring my own unease onto them.

I feel like I can’t speak on the topic of prostitution; that if I do my convictions will be challenged by those who claim that I don’t know the truth because I have no experience in the industry, which is true: I can’t speak from experience. On the other hand, I’ve read a lot. It doesn’t mean that the literature is accurate, and some of it has seriously called into question the validity of self-reports from those within the industry who report having chosen the occupation and feeling liberated from patriarchy. A simple matter of cognitive dissonance, the articles suggest. At any rate, I believe prostitution is oppressive, yes; and that choice in the matter exists for such a tiny minority that it is an irrelevant topic of discussion. I guess when many people think of prostitutes, they think of the liberated images they see in the movies or the rare (and highly glorified) voices of those who claim to have chosen a profession that is, globally, one of the lowest of human social positions. It’s like that question gays and lesbians ask: Why would someone choose to be a part of a group that is so despised? (It goes something like that.) Or that anti-drug ad always on AFKN: "No one says, ‘I want to be a junkie when I grow up.’" The same can be said for prostitution.

Today is election day and it is a holiday. It’s not on the calendar, which pisses me off because if it had been, we probably would’ve gone somewhere for 4 days. I guess they don’t decide when to have the elections until a month or two before the event. I don’t know: It’s one of those times when the expat community is kept in the dark. Dave is off and he’s watching the Bulls and Jazz. Every so often he exhales some kind of exclamation. Throughout the morning, campaigners have been circling the neighborhood in trucks with crappy loudspeakers. Voices and music with singing grow louder and louder and then more faint as the trucks pass through. It’s uncannily like what we’ve learned is commonplace in communist countries like North Korea and China. Aren’t the images we always see in movies consisting of groups of people chanting to music, whose lyrics sing party slogans and which resonate in distorted and inaudible cacophony from poorly manufactured sound systems stuck on the highest volume? It’s just like that, and to my American-Imperialist-Aggressor ears, it gives me the creeps.

In the late afternoon, Dave walked out with me on the trail so I could use my new lens to capture that entire city block of sprouting skyscrapers. They're nearing completion now and most of the cranes are gone. Most have several floors of siding and a few are almost completely finished on the exterior. The sky was overcast though, and I know the pictures won't look very good, but I wanted to just record it now for the sake of doing it (because I may not have done it at all, ever, if I didn't seize the moment). If the weather turns nice soon and I feel like it, maybe I'll go back out.