Sunday, July 21, 2013

A view from the inside

Sitting in the cafe in the Nairobi airport, a huge group of British teenagers on some sort of group trip came in and for maybe the first time, I was able to see them as some of the others people around saw them:

- These kids are going to order a tremendous amount of food with no regard for money (they did- they ordered and then constantly added to their orders and threw around cash in giant denominations)

- OH MY GOD THEY ARE SO LOUD. The decibels in that cafe pre- to post-teen invasion went up by at least an order of magnitude (pretty obvious I have no basic understanding of sound measurement...)

- Why are they so slovenly if they're so rich?  I'm positive that if you dug up a picture of me in the airport on my first trip to Africa I would have been wearing sweats and a hoodie. Only now do I realize that this is mind-boggling to others. If you can afford to look nice, why be a slob? I fight my inner slob-tendencies on every trip and was amused to notice that these teens were just like me a long time ago, totally oblivious. I still actively resent having to get dressed up to go to breakfast but it's a small concession considering the African ladies in the airport, even while toting around 3 kids, are in full matching outfits with 4 inch heels.





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