The current phase on baby Indjamba’s path to potty training is him stepping through the door from inside the main house onto the small brick landing at the home’s entrance, usually pants off but shirt on, and arriving at the bricks’ edges, taking a leak in the sand. His form is perfect. Back straight, head up, penis in hand, an air of royalty about him. He looks about with a gleam in his eye and a tiny smile, seemingly unaware of the shame and sin he was supposedly born with because a woman ate an apple, a woman he will learn about soon enough.

The other day he came out of the house in the usual way, shirt on pants off, but he came out in a bit of panic. He made it just a step or two from the doorway, put his hand on his thighs, bent over – not like a squat, more like a hamstring stretch – and took a big old shit. His head was hanging at an angle like he was trying to witness his excrement make its exit.

A couple hours later he was standing beside me while I sat outside reading. We handed rocks back and forth for a while. I farted. We laughed.

And in the US racism prevails.