Culture shock

Here's a piece from The Guardian UK that's worth reading: six Maasai warriors were to run the London Marathon yesterday to raise money for a well in their village and one of the runners kept a short diary of his experiences in London.

Our elders told us we can do the marathon because we have been running all over, killing a lion and herding cattle. I sometimes run for two or three days with my cattle, and I have to protect them from lions. We can help the village by raising money to drill for clean water, so all of us have trained hard.

Heathrow was very busy and it was difficult to walk on the floor because some of it moved. You're walking along and the next moment it's whooosh! It's difficult to get on and off but very good when you're on.

It's worth the read. It's easy to forget how what is commonplace and what's exotic is wholly a matter of perspective--some people take motorized walkways for granted, others take running down a lion to save their cattle as a part of the daily grind. Anyway, go take a look.