I'm not good at taking pictures of people. I don't like asking and I feel strange just surreptitiously trying to sneak a shot; it feels dirty. And I don't like how taking a picture of someone often makes them turn all stiff and self-conscious, and the beautiful spontaneity of what I wanted to take a picture of is lost.

And then there are the pictures I don't get because I'm not fast enough or because it feels insensitive to pull out my camera or because I would rather stand there and see with my own two eyes than capture it on a tiny screen and think about it later. There are lots of those as well.

So I'm trying to write down the things I would take pictures of if I could, if my eyes were cameras and a blink could be a closing shutter. Click.

The kitchen men at school taking a break in between meals, crouched on the ground playing cards, still wearing their white hats and jackets, their feet bare. The cards are laid out on a piece of cardboard. Some of the men sit or squat, a couple sit on small hunks of broken concrete that look far less comfortable than the ground. They are smiling. The game looks like rummy.

The cobbler in the bazaar, carving the bottom of a shoe out of a new piece of salmon-colored leather. His chest is bare and his whole body moves rhythmically as he pushes his chisel through the leather, against the small rectangle of metal he holds between his bare feet, cutting perfectly along the line traced in the leather. Even the curves are smooth and even. He doesn't look up for a moment.

The chicken with its head caught in a plastic bag, standing still at first in the middle of the trash pile on the outskirts of the bazaar, so still that I don't even know if it is what I think it is. But then it starts moving, its face becoming clearer as it pecks frantically at the bag. If it would only put its head down, the bag would slide right off. But it pecks and pecks and my sisters and I watch it, asking each other what we should do. I eye the pile of trash and shit, think about tetanus and my slipper-clad feet. We wonder if someone put the bag on the chicken on purpose, wonder if someone will come along to rescue it, or should we do it. Finally, a little boy comes tearing across the trash pile and pulls the bag from the chicken's head. It runs away. "Let's stop looking like tourists," says one of my sisters and we walk on.

Tourists stop and stare. When I stare at the little Tibetan boy spinning a top on the table or the mournful cow plopped down in the middle of the busy bazaar, I am marking myself as an outsider, because I am not pretending these are everyday things. My sister minds this, I think, but I don't mind. I stare and stare and will myself to remember. The bright green and yellow top. The clotted hooves and horns worn to nubs, looking raw and pink. The weird painful tugs at my heart, the way it makes me all feel. The things I can't take pictures of.