The great wonder

After having travelled through Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania we are still flabbergasted, don't understand a lot of things and wonder about the people and things around us. On a daily basis we experience how European we are and how life in the East-African countries differs from ours in the Netherlands. Of course we're used to the way things are 'organised' here, but the cultural cleft is clearly extant and seems difficult to close. Being visitors we adapt and do not complain a lot: as a matter of fact it's our choice to be here. Nobody invited us or sent for us. To express our wonder we filed a number of amazing things and categorised them. The first category are the astonished looks. The second category is where we listen open-mouthed and the third category makes our hair stand on end.

Category 1; how is it possible that:
- cows and goats always cross the road when we pass?
- in Uganda and Kenya women do not ride bicycles and in Tanzania they do?
- the market-stalls are filled with vegetables, but in restaurants only rice, matoke, ugali and meat, beans and fish is served?
- tropical birds show so many different bright colours while all the birds in the Netherlands are grey, brown or black?
- people can easily stare at us for over an hour, only because we are white?
- everybody in these countries can easily chat the whole day, what are they talking about?
- bone-dry savannah and moist tropical forests lie so close together?
- there are potholes of a square metre in a new and smooth tarmac road?
- the sparing bread in the shops sometimes is sold with ants, tears and mould?
- banks are lead by criminals? When we change euros at the same bank in a different town the exchange rate is suddenly 12% lower, while the value of the euro is raised internationally. The villains at the Standard Chartered Bank ask a forty dollar commission when changing a travellers cheque.
- guards, who have the most boring jobs there are, are the nicest people?

Category 2; how is it still possible that:
- everybody throws their garbage on the street and sweep it up again a few hours later?
- there is an 18th century hierarchy here, where ordering, hissing and calling names is normal?
- the communication is so difficult, even with people who do speak English? "Do you know where the market is?" "Sure I do." ….silence… "Would you mind telling us where it is then?"
- we always feel safe, even though everybody in the country-side is carrying very large cutting-knives?
- the best form of transport in the rain-season is a boat, even over land?
- Black Africans are extremely afraid of silence, the dark and snakes?
- shops never have change, although their neighbours always do have it?
- the doors in simple guesthouses only reach to Peter's shoulders and beds that are far too short, as well as the most hospitable and friendly staff that even gives gifts to us?
- men scratch their crotches in public without any embarrassment?
- everybody distrust each other? Every door has about four to six locks, bars, shops and hotels have barred windows, sharp fragments of glass are built in the walls, everywhere is barbed wire and walk armed guards.
- most men do absolutely nothing the whole day, but complain and beg with a mobile phone hanging from their belts?
- some computers in the intercafes are unusable because of the ever reappaering sex-sites, while porno is supposedly forbidden?
- people think that being white equals being a bank?
- people in these Christian and Islamic countries fuck like rabbits, condoms are for free, some rather pay for a real brand condom and the AIDS-figures are still sky-high?

Category 3; how in Heaven's Name is it possible that:
- staff sometimes doesn't get paid for months and get cheated by their own bosses?
- the big supermarkets are filled with products nobody can buy? The average wage is one euro per day, a packet of butter costs 75 eurocent. A lot of people grow vegetables, the shops are filled with imported vegetables that cost four times as much as in the Netherlands.
- the government in Uganda prepares a bill in which trading in second hand-goods will be prohibited, while more than 50% of the population depends on these clothes?
- a continental breakfast (Hotel Deluxe in Mwanza) consists of a sandwich with butter and a cup of tea; by putting instant coffee in the tea it is turned into the coffee, the coffee-tin is empty though, put back on the shelf and served again the next day?
- adults in Uganda are not potty-trained, according to the plastic covers over the mattresses and the warning signs of hotel-managers?
- visiting sights and attractions is often fifty times as expensive for foreigners than for the local people?
- extremely loud music in bars and discotheques is an accepted phenomena? Africans must be the soundest sleepers in the world!
- most shops belong to Indian people, and they also have a more extensive assortment of better quality than the African shops?
- there is such an enormous waste of things, water and electricity in these poor countries?
- everything is ever built or manufactured and never maintained since?
- there are still so many cockroaches, even after we've been there?

Simply, because things are as they are!