You Know You Aren't In Kansas Anymore When....

You know you aren't in Kansas anymore when....there are monkeys inside and outside of the house you are staying in! I came home after a morning of Sudanese Embassy and first time taxi taking in Nairobi and when I walked by one of the open bedroom doors in the apartment that I am staying in -- lo and behold through the open grating leading to a little second floor porch there were two monkeys swinging away happily on the bars of the grating! Then one of them was trying to get through the door that leads from the porch to the living room area -- and I realized what has been making the noise and moving the door every day that I've been here! I am so glad that I saw the monkeys this way instead of having one suddenly appear in my living room with me! After getting pictures of the two of them, including a tail on the top picture in this blog, I was in the living room and looked outside. Lo and behold there was a monkey in a tree branch eating something! Grabbed the camera again! Not in Kansas anymore....

Okay, if it is Tuesday it must be Belgium. If I can look outside of the window again and this time see two monkeys in different trees it must be Africa. How amazing is this! I got to watch one of them lithely climb branches and go swinging just like in the movies. I will admit that the Philippines had similar attributes, but Africa so far is different even with the similarities.

This morning I saw school children with uniforms and found myself remembering my time in Belfast. The children in Belfast also wore uniforms and I remember being told that one could immediately tell who was Protestant and who was Catholic by the uniform that each one wore. I found out about the private ex-patriot schools here in Nairobi. The foreigners send their children to private schools each according to their own nation in order that their children will stay abreast of the curriculum in their home countries. There are few locals who can afford the cost of the private schools so only a few Kenyan children are in school with the foreigners. Draw your own conclusions.

The taxi driver took me back to my guest home through a wealthy are of town. I asked who lived in it. He told me it is primarily NGO employees. NGO's are Non Governmental Organizations, in otherwords they are supposed to be non-profit organizations who are here in Africa to help the poor and work towards creating justice and sustainable industry, etc. He told me that there are a few very wealthy Kenyans in Nairobi. They buy land and build great houses and then rent them to the NGO's for their employees to live in. I have just finished reading Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a book by the husband and wife journalist team of Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn. Among many other things in this book they discuss NGO's which descend on countries and cities in their SUV's and lifestyles that are lavish by local measures. It is interesting to me to have a local person point out something like this that at least seems to verify some of what Half the Sky spoke of.

Okay, a monkey just came into the living room! I have now closed the open window.