Illicit desires

Crime fiction is not my favourite genre. Just ask my friend Gas Wylde, whose novel based on the Wanda Beach murders I have been struggling to finish – just because I’m afraid it will get too grisly. I confess, I never really graduated from Agatha Christie.

I’m not averse to broadening my literary horizons though, which is why last year I joined a book club that some friends had started. I thought it was time I got out of my literary confort zone (fantasy & non-fiction, and yes, I know those words sound odd together). We have read & discussed some great books, and the latest was – wait for it – crime fiction: African-Aussie Malla Nunn’s A Beautiful Place to Die , set in South Africa in the fifties, not long after apartheid was made law.

Last week I was lucky enough to hear Malla Nunn talk about her books at the Sydney Writers Festival. She opened by talking about growing up ‘mixed race’ in South Africa. For years, she said, she lacked the courage to write, feeling she couldn’t write about white people because she wasn’t white, nor about black people because she wasn’t black. She was stuck in between, a kind of no man’s land. Luckily for Australian fiction, she overcame this mental block after returning to Swaziland to film a documetary about her mother. The trip enabled her to reconnect with the land she left as an 11 year old, and to remember that she had a ‘terrific’ family background and history.

This history included many family stories of life in the early years of apartheid, of a time when people suddenly had to contend with being classified as white, black or mixed race - sometimes in contradiction to how they had defined themselves; when the racial inequalites became entrenched by law; when love across racial boundaries became not merely illicit but illegal. I still find this hard to comprehend.

Mixed race or ‘coloured’ people occupied an uneasy space in this madly segregated culture. Nunn spoke of how they made everyone ‘uncomfortable’, because they were a reminder, indeed, proof, that people had sex, that desire existed in spite of the law. A Beautiful Place to Die is as much an exploration of these ‘illicit desires’ as the back-cover blurb would have it, as it is a story about crime. More than that, it exposes how the madness of apartheid distorted and tainted relationships; how even friendship or casual contact became fraught with tension, hypocrisy, fear and deceit. But also – on the plus side – how ‘people will be people’ and reach out for each other, no matter they are hedged about with prohibitions and judgement; how we strive to overcome the artificial barrier that racism places in the way of being close to other humans.

I found Nunn’s image of the kaffir paths a wonderful metaphor for these complexities. The paths weave through the book as they weave between the black, white and coloured worlds. Frequented in the night by white men who cannot be seen to be using them, they are a twighlight world of their own that holds surprises, secrets and danger. Nunn’s detective Emmanuel Cooper walks the kaffir paths to interview suspects and follow leads in his investigation of a white policeman’s murder. He claims the right of a policeman to go where he wants, but is always aware that any mistake could cost him dearly.

I guess crime fiction is usually the story of killers who are desperate to cover up their secret whatever the cost. In this book, however, just about everyone stands to lose if Cooper exposes the truth about the murder, because the truth is at odds with the entire social structure of fifties South Africa. With the exception of Black Constable Shabalala, no-one really wants him to find out what happened and why. They could lose face and social standing, lose their families, their freedom, their safety, their illusions, their power. Cooper himself comes very close to losing his life. Such is racism.

Nunn said she sometimes tries to imagine how a bunch of white men, sitting together in a room somewhere, could have seriously come up with the idea that they could create a white segregated society in the middle of a country full of black people – and that it would work! We laughed with her – it truly seems bizarre. But it happened. A Beautiful Place to Die skilfully portrays that savage absurdity.

Perhaps you can see why I liked this book – it touches on issues that are close to my heart. I’m glad Malla Nunn found her voice. I’m only sorry I couldn’t figure out, at her talk, how to frame the question I wanted to ask – or perhaps I was too shy. I wanted to ask her how being mixed had influenced her writing – or what kind of difference it made to her perspective – damn, still can’t get the words right! She had partly answered it in her talk, but I wanted more. Perhaps the book itself gives the answer.

A friend of mine reckons our mixed kids grow up with a foot in two worlds & that gives them a great ability to see more than one side of a story or an argument, and to negotiate between the two. I think Nunn is able to do that. Her writing has a wonderful clarity of perspective on the diverse characters and their interests, values and motivations. She writes from a position that encompasses possibilities, rather than a single perspective that ‘others’ those who are different to her, the author. I hope our kids do grow up to discover, as Nunn seems to have done, that the ‘in-between’ world of ‘mixed race’ is a place of strength; not in-between at all, but all-embracing.

What your dollars are doing: remittances make a difference!

Doorway into the family compound at DadaK's village in Ghana.

While money can cause problems in all relationships, there’s a particular twist in relationships where one partner is from a lower income country.

As a committee member for Australian African Network (AAN), a group for people in mixed relationships & families, I’m regularly approached by non-African partners who are worried because they feel their partner is sending a lot of money back to family in Africa (techincally known as remittances).

Their main concerns are whether or not their African partner’s families’ requests – or ‘demands’ – for money are genuine and reasonable; and that the out-flow of money is at the expense of their own families here.

The first thing I say to them is that they are not alone – this is a really common problem - and it’s really important to figure out how to balance everyone’s needs.

All the people interviewed for Working it Out (a booklet on mixed relationships I edited for AAN in 2009) were very aware that money issues posed a potential threat to their relationship. For some, conflicts around money lead to separation. Others had figured out how to manage it – usually when the African partner had decided to place a very firm limit on how much they sent home each month (this is easier said than done of course), or the non-African partner was in a strong enough financial position that they could cope with the level of money being sent to African relatives.

I’m lucky enough to have been in the latter category. It actually took a while to dawn on me just how much money DadaK was sending back, because we always kept our finances separate and split the bills. The main impact was that I paid a bit more rent than he did because I didn’t want to compromise on the quality of our home, whereas his priority was to live as cheaply as possible so he could send more money to his family. I had a well-paid job, so this was (mostly) manageable, but not everyone is so lucky, and remittances can be a big drain on the family budget, especially now that the cost of living is increasing so much.

Although I’ve been able to continue to help out financially at times since our separation, I think the greatest impact on me has been the distress I feel due to the extreme differences in the standards of living of my Ghanaian in-laws and my Australian family.

Perhaps it’s more common among those of use who’ve been to Africa, but I know other Aussie partners share this distress – even despair. You know how great the need is, when you have in-laws living in poverty, and you know you can never help everyone.

One of the women I interviewed for Working it Out captured this feeling when she said: ‘I’d like to send the kids to school so they have half a chance of being able to support themselves, but I can’t support 30 kids!’

It can feel that as an individual you can never make a difference, especially when you and your partner are so far from where the money is being spent and – of course – cannot really control what’s done with it. For years I watched DadaK sending money to Africa to relatives who either ‘mis-used’ the momey (i.e., had quite different priorities, to him, as to how it should be spent), or else messed up on projects that he’d hoped would make them more independent of him – like crashing the taxi he’d bought, or letting his cattle graze on the rubbish dump, where they died from eating plastic bags.

In spite of all the various disasters, several of DadaK’s siblings have managed to put at least some of their kids through high school, which is basically thanks to his remittances. I think that’s a pretty good outcome. And that is really the moral of this post, (which I am now going to back up with some data released last year by the World Bank): Remittances do make a difference.

Leveraging Migration for Africa: Remittances, Skills, and Investments, has a whole chapter on the impact of remittances in Africa. This report from the World Bank states that Africa received around $40 billion in remittances in 2010; equivalent to 2.6% of Africa’s gross domestic product and the continent’s biggest income stream after foreign investment. In fact, the report suggests, this figure is probably a serious under-estimate and the value of remittances could easily be more than $80 billion.

According to the report, remittances make African countries more ‘credit-worthy’, encourage investment, and are more stable than other sources of income because they remain fairly steady (even during the GFC) and may even increase during periods of crisis when other income from trade and investment declines. In general, they appear to contribute to the growth of African economies.

Remittances are also ‘associated with reductions in poverty … improved health and education outcomes … and act as a form of insurance for households facing shocks to their income and livelihood caused by drought, famine and other natural disasters.’

As remittances have quadrupled in volume in the past 20 years (due to increased migration), it seems to me that these benefits are likely to also increase. In the long run, remittances may help alleviate poverty and level the global playing field for Africa – and your dollars are helping to make that happen! Now that’s what I call an investment.

Passing on food traditions

Observe the concentration: rolling out the pastry for a 'treat for daddy' - circa 1964. Note the slow combustion stove in the left-hand corner.

My book club is currently reading Brick Lane, which is about Bangladeshi migrants in London. It prompted one of my anglo-Aussie friends (AAs) to comment that she enjoyed reading about the how the food traditions in that culture, and felt that these traditions were lacking in ours. I suspect a lot of AAs feel like that – it’s part of our belief that compared with everyone else we Anglo-celts don’t really have a culture.

Well, I certainly don’t feel that way about food. OK, I do feel a little envious when I see – for example – big extended Italian families cooking together on Italian Food Safari, but I definitely have food traditions that I learned from my mother, and I am actively engaged in passing them on.

These traditions are more to do with baking cakes & biscuits than with meals. I grew up on fairly predictable & plain fare: cold meat & salad for lunch, grilled chops & three veg most nights. This was dictated by time, cost & availability – we were lucky enough to grow our own meat and much of our own veg – as well as inherited English food culture. I admit, it wasn’t hugely interesting, though I was lucky to have a mother who was an excellent cook & didn’t cook the veggies to death. Perhaps that’s why it was over creaming butter & sugar, and learning the tricks for a nice light scone, that we bonded.

My Mum baked cakes, biscuits & slices several times a week to provide morning tea for the various people who visited the experimental farm we lived on, and afternoon tea for her sweet-toothed children. For many years, she did this in a slow combustion wood stove.

My Mum died last August, and it was food that inspired the eulogy I gave at her funeral. This was because I suddenly realised, as I ate a cafe meal of roasted beetroot & pumpkin salad garnished with walnuts, a day or two before the funeral, that I have Mum to thank for my love of fresh fruit & veggies, and for my appreciation of the ‘fresh, seasonal produce’ – that is now a bit of a celebrity chef cliché. My Mum – daughter of a greengrocer and wife of a farmer/green-thumbed gardener – knew all about that decades before celebrity chefs came along.

Just as one example – she instilled in me a love of that strange vegetable beetroot, because she stewed & pickled her own. With that as a benchmark, I can only tolerate canned beetroot when it’s heavily disguised on a hamburger.

So my eulogy became a series of thank-yous to Mum for what I had learned from her, or what I was grateful to her for, culinary and otherwise.

My earliest cooking memory is of making an apple pie as a ‘treat’ for Dad. It had green pastry and I seem to recall that the filling was not very traditional, but Mum had a wonderful tolerance for my culinary experiments. So did Dad, as I’m told he actually ate it. I feel sad when I hear of families were the mother rules the kitchen and won’t let the kids in to learn about food with her. I have countless happy memories of planning, cooking and talking about food with Mum. And of eating it all of course, especially when we had collaborated on Christmas day or other extended family feasts.

I have moved on and honed my skills since then, and one of the activities I particularly enjoy doing with the children in my life is baking. Most recently, some cranberry cupcakes yesterday morning with three of AM’s siblings – Abrantie, G Ketewa & Treasure. It was so much fun & the results were good too.

On other occasions we have cooked ginger biscuits (Mum’s recipe), Anzac biscuits & tried various other classic biscuits from – what else? – the Women’s Weekly Collection of Biscuits and Slices. (Well, I can tell you what else: the Country Women’s Association Cookbook, except that my 1974 edition doesn’t have any pictures to inspire; or my Mum’s own black, food-stained folder full of her collected recipes).

Looks like Abrantie is getting serious about cooking. When I spoke to him on the phone this morning and asked about his plans for the day, they included making ginger biscuits. On another call, his mum, Obaapa, consulted me about buying a mixer as she’djust seen one on special. It could be a good investment; perhaps he’ll end up as a celebrity chef.

But at the very least, Abrantie will grow up with not only his Ghanaian, but also my food traditions. As will my son AM, who at 17 is not hugely interested in cooking, but can still produce (with a little guidance) a mean cheesecake and a succulent rack of lamb. (He tells me – dear little sexist piglet – that he plans to rely on Treasure for his Ghanaian meals when his Dad & Obaapa are no longer able to provide them). Well, given our attempts at cooking Ghanaian food, he may have to.

So yes, I can confidently say that I am a link in the chain of my cultural culinary traditions. Cupcakes rule, ok!

Bicultural food swap

It’s nice that someone likes my cooking. I don’t know if it’s adolescent pickiness or just culinary incompatibility – of course it’s not my cooking skills! – but AM doesn’t really like most of what I cook. He prefers his Dad’s cooking: fishy, meaty, spicy, substantial Ghanaian food. But his (half) brother, 50 Cedis, likes pretty much everything I cook, although he draws the line at beetroot salad.

50 Cedis’ first action, on arriving at my house, is to look in the fridge in hope of leftover pasta, casserole, or steak. He regularly reminds me that “You haven’t cooked nachos for a long time”. Often he’ll even ask me on the phone, what we’re having for dinner.  Such are the dreams of an 11 year old African-Australian boy.  

Recently I invited the family to come to an African restaurant to celebrate my birthday. They couldn’t come, but 50 Cedis wasn’t too disappointed. He advised me, in that “gotta shake some sense into this silly white woman” tone of voice he has, that “next time, MaameJ, can’t you go somewhere else …? Like Italian?”

Poor darling, he craves non-African food. He’s tried to get his parents to cook things like spaghetti bolognese but, as with my attempts at Ghanaian cuisine, with mixed results. DadaK actually called me up one night because 50 Cedis had been campaigning strongly for broccoli and pumpkin – which of course DadaK didn’t know how to cook. I provided detailed instructions and apparently it was a great success. Such is life in a bicultural family: trading broccoli recipes and take-away jollof rice or peanut soup.  All parties satisfied.

The world’s best uncle

The World's Best Uncle washing up with Abrantie.

In the interests of fairness, I’ll start by saying that AM has seven uncles and I’m sure they’d all be contenders for the nomination of World’s Best Uncle but as six of them live a long way away from us, only one has had a chance to compete for this prestigious title. Not that it’s a competition; it’s just a fact, in my view, that one of my older brothers – dubbed WBU for this blog – has been a fantastic uncle not only to AM but also to his half-siblings.

He has been a major contender for the WBU since the birth of our first niece in 1970; he’s always been popular with his nieces and nephews, although as they’ve all lived in the country he hasn’t had the opportunity to shine, in the way that he has with AM and co.

In our case, it started with AM’s birth – I think he was the first person on the spot after delivery, and from that day on, we have had a regular date every week for playtime, dinner, outings and more recently C++ consultations and discussions on quantum theory. Illness and travel have been the only interruptions to our routine. He has been a fantastic support to me and a constant, positive, loving influence in AM’s life. He’s also had regular, though less frequent visits with DadaK and the rest of the family, with the result that the children have all known and adored him since they were infants. He’s helped me take them on bike-rides and to the beach, visits their place for lunch & cuddles with the little ones, records movies off TV and troubleshoots computer and Wii problems for the older ones. He has tirelessly pushed every one of them on swings.

At the moment, though, the children aren’t seeing so much of him, and the outings have slowed almost to a halt, because he was diagnosed with cancer last year and hasn’t been well. The prognosis is reasonably hopeful but it’s still been a hard six months - chemo, major surgery, and now radiotherapy on the horizon as well. So now it’s our turn to support him, and show him just how much we care.

Pick a colour (almost) any colour ….

I’m lucky that one of my brothers subscribes to the New Scientist and so I get to read this excellent mag on a regular basis, although it’s sometimes a month or two old before I get it. An item that caught my eye recently was about a ‘virtual census’ of US video game characters.

The survey found – surprise, surprise – that white adult males make up 85% of game characters. So where does that leave the vast majority of gamers who are not white adult males? In particular, where does it leave young people who have to choose a character that does not reflect who they are in any way? I realise that in gaming, part of the attraction can be that you get to pretend to be someone other than who you are – but do most people really want to be white adult males? Hmmm ….

AM is a keen gamer – possibly addicted to his two faves, Maple Story and Warcraft. In the latter, colour is not so much of an issue as many of the characters are not even human (although there is still a predominance of pale maleness).  In Maple Story, which was developed in South Korea, there are more options and AM has chosen brown skin for the characters he plays. I think that’s a good sign about his sense of identity.

Not long before I read about the survey, I overheard AM muttering contemptuous comments to a friend, about another game he’s tried which only offered the white skin option. So he wasn’t surprised when I told him about the research, it’s something he’s observed himself. 

I wasn’t surprised either, really. I mean, it’s not like books, TV shows and movies are much more representative of the population, when it comes to ethnicity. Tokenism still reigns. Even one of my favourite TV shows, Torchwood, managed to kill off both of its non-white characters by the end of series 2. (Also, incidentally, reducing number of women to 1). I’ll be pretty disappointed if they haven’t reintroduced some diversity in the latest series, (which I’ve yet to see).

It seems hard for predmoniantly white countries to let go of their mythologies about white adult male superiority. Take the movie Avatar, which reaffirms that old Hollywood myth that people of colour can only successfully throw off  their oppressors if they have a white man gunning for them. Ok, this time he was blue for most of the movie, and yes, he learned to see the world differently, but couldn’t Hollywood just once let the white guy back the indigenous people, instead of lead them? I enjoyed the movie – it was gorgeous and entertaining – but the whiteness of it was what stays with me. Yet none of the reviews I’ve read seem to have noticed, let alone critiqued this. The white male ‘norm’ is indeed deeply embedded in how my culture thinks.

I wonder how long it’s going to take  for us to get over this weirdness.

Christmas

My first Christmas, surrounded by my brothers.

Well, that’s another Christmas successfully negotiated. Phew.

Christmas is one of the times of year when the differing cultural expectations in our mixed family come to the fore. I have decades of developed society cultural and consumerist baggage – tinsel, Santa, expensive gifts, hollywood films, roast pork and Walker’s shortbread; whereas DadaK & Obaapa have – well – Christ. In Ghana – or so DadaK tells me – there would be a special meal and visiting, but none of all the other stuff we obsess about in Australia. Of course, it’s a long time since he spent Christmas in Ghana, so that may have changed a bit but still, at the core – Christ.

The thing is, I’m not a christian. I was raised that way, went to Sunday school and all, but rejected any faith I ever had many years ago and now consider myself an atheist. Well, maybe an agnostic, I guess it’s possible something’s out there – but I certainly don’t believe it’s an omnipotent patriarchal god with a special interest in my personal circumstances.

I have tried not to let this interfere with celebrating christmas – after all, it has some great traditions and symbolism associated with it that I always felt it was fun to pass on to your kids. Both the pagan-heritage christmas tree and the birth of a baby represent life and hope and promise for the future, and I reckon making a special day for family is a good thing. I love christmas carols and fairy lights, mince pies and plum pudding. I have fond childhood memories of making presents, decorating the house and tree, and having lots of special things to eat and drink on christmas day, with all the family gathered around.

But I am becoming increasingly disenchanted with the whole affair. This is partly because I seem to have failed in passing on to AM my love of the traditions. Decorating? Great idea – you do it Mum. Christmas carols? Get me outta here. Making presents – you gotta be kidding! To be fair, he has at times shown an interest in all of these things but the only things that have really stuck that he likes about Christmas are receiving presents – of course! – and Christmas pudding, which he would eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I wasn’t around to restrain him.

I’m also a bit disaffected because DadaK and Obapaa don’t buy into all the trimmings much either. They like it if I do it – but aren’t that interested in participating. They admire the xmas tree but don’t want to sit around it for a couple of hours sipping fruit punch, nibbling on mince pies and opening presents in a leisurely fashion (which is what I’d really like to do). They prefer to cut to the chase  – i.e. Xmas lunch – and the present opening is just a quick pit-stop en route to the main event. So what’s the point, really, of decorating the halls for five minutes of chaos? Better save my energies for something else.

Finding suitable gifts is another thing that gets to me. Raised in a culture where children had a whole village to play with, and toys were mostly not available unless the kids made them out of bits of wood and tin, DadaK and Obaapa don’t have the ‘play with your kids’ ethic that I grew up with. This means you can’t give their children toys that require any adult involvement or supervision, or transport to a park.  Until recently, small parts were also off limits because there was always someone under the age of three. This year DadaK has placed a ban on electronic games – which I sympathise with but they were always welcomed by the children. Taking them off the shopping list made gift shopping a bit of a headache that was further complicated by my questioning of the whole materialistic concept. Not to mention the madness in the shops, the expensive crappy gifts that line every toy aisle, and the high expectations of the kids that I could spend hundred of dollars on them.  For something I don’t even belive in?! But then I figured out to get Abrantie some guitar lessons from one of AM’s friends, and extra swimming classes for 50 Cedis so he can catch up to his mates, and it all started to look a whole lot easier.  

If I was a practising christian, I know I’d have something to celebrate regardless of the horrible consumerism that’s grown up around Christmas in this society, and I’d be able to prioritise the spirit of the occasion rather than all the excessive trimmings. It wouldn’t be a frenzy of worrying about presents and creating that ’perfect’ christmas day experience that the media promotes. 

Actually, I am getting better at taking the frenzy out of christmas, and at shaking off my childhood nostalgia about it. We have created some new traditions in our family and this year for perhaps the first time in years I was able to just relax about it – at least on the day.

Our Christmas is a BBQ in a local park. DadaK brings bread, plates, and crates of malt drink. I bring salads (that no-one much eats), gourmet sausages, prawns, fruit and apple cider (cos I don’t like malt). A family friend who works in a meat packing factory brings kilos and kilos of marinated meat which she and Obaapa barbecue. We unwrap (low-budget) presents at the park before we eat. The kids all drink litres of malt and play assorted outdoor games. This year AM even roused from his teenage torpor for a couple of hours and played handball with his brothers a chasing with his sister. It was fun.  It’s what we’ve done every Christmas for about 8 years.  

DadaK and family have made a big compromise in not going to church - unless Christmas falls on a Sunday. They have instead prioritsed spending the day with the atheists in their family – AM, me, and my brother – because we are family. That is so gracious and generous and maybe truly is the spirit of Christmas. It fits with what I most value about the day – celebrating family. The least I can do on my side is let go of Christmas anxiety and keep it simple. Cherish the love.

No, he’s my son …

She's my mum, OK!?!

The other day I was  reading an article on Intermix by Canadian ‘Piss’ comedian Sabrina Jalees. (Piss, by her own definition = Pakistani/Swiss). She listed all the pros and cons of being mixed race. The one that struck a chord with me was “Your innocent mother-daughter love is easily mistaken for a ‘creepy sugar momma and her young misguided brown girl’ lesbian fling.” Not that AM and I have ever been mistaken for lesbians of course, but there was that time in Germany last year when the hotel proprietor seemed to think we’d be needing a double bed … ick. AM was only 13 at the time.

Anyway, her comment prompted me to think of the three major ways in which white mum’s relationships with our kids get mis-identified. From birth through primary school people think you’ve adopted them. (Aren’t you good!, they exclaim to you beside the swings).

Then there’s the Cougar phase I just referred to, starting sometime during puberty and lasting, I assume, a very, very long time. 

And finally, I’m guessing that when I’m old and decrepit, people will think he’s a kindly care worker or volunteer at an old people’s home. (Isn’t he good!, they will think to themselves).

I don’t really hold it against people. They’re usually just curious about us. I’m sure it’s good for my patience. This pic at right from when he was little, is for everyone who wonders who we are.

Get used to it.

Bouquet to RACP

In late August the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) released a statement that reaffirmed their position that male circumcision should not be performed on infant boys as a routine procedure. Good on them! Read their statement, a brochure for parents, and the policy which is currently being reviewed.

Circumcision seems to arouse incredible passion and tenacity among its supporters. These are usually – but not always – people from cultures where circumcision is a time-honoured cultural practice. It’s been my observation that in mixed relationships, it’s usually the partner from the non-circumcising culture that gives way, if there’s any disagreement. Well, that may promote marital harmony but seems pretty unfair to the child, who has no choice in the matter. 

I don’t see culture as a defence for what I consider to be an oppressive practice.  Culture is ever-changing and over time, people often repudiate cultural practices that used to be routine – there are, for example, plenty of African women now speaking out against female genital mutilation – and in my own culture many people now reject cultural practices around gender roles that used to be unquestioned.

I also don’t think much of the medical arguments. As the RACP says in its statement, the alleged benefits of male circumcision just don’t stack up against the risks of the operation and the ethical issues around perfoming non-reversible, non-essential surgery without anasthaesia on a minor. And if you are concerned about the big bogey HIV (some studies have shown it may have a protective effect agaist HIV transmission) inform yourself with this briefing paper by the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations.

I could write a thesis on this topic but that will do for now …. I will sit back and await the brickbats that may shower upon me for revealing that I oppose circumcision.

Dreadlock action plan

AM’s hair is a mess. There, I’m not mincing words. I have nothing against dreadlocks, in fact I like them, but the dreads he’s acquired through wilful neglect of his hair are just dry and yucky. Phew, feels better to get that out in the open.

AM has promised his stepmother Obaapa that he will come to her salon & get his dreads sorted out, (i.e. combed out and re-done) but – well, that was a month ago and nothing’s happened. Partly, as he’s the first to admit, this is due to laziness. But it’s also because he’s afraid he’ll have to cut them all off and have short hair again. And if it turns out that he does have nits somewhere in that birds nest, yes, that’s exactly what will happen, whether he likes it or not. However it may turn out alright … Obaapa recently spent a day combing out another mixed teen’s matted locks – so they could be corn-rowed, and today I happened upon a page with detailed instructions on “How to Comb Out Dredlocks”. It’s on a site that explains “How to do just about everything”, so the side bar lists related articles that I suspect may also be very helpful, such as “How to comb out a horse tail extension”, and “How to comb cats with matted hair”.

I have combed out AM’s before, but it was baby-dreads compared to what he’s got now. Whether this new information will actually get AM as far as Obaapa’s salon is another matter. We’ll see.  perhaps I just have to accept my Matty, (as opposed to Natty) Dread.

And on a slightly related note – I discovered an Australian site with info and products related to dreds: http://www.dreadlocks.com.au/index.php - what was fascinating was that almost all the models are white!