Category: culture

We recently drove down to Texas for a short spring break visit. On a remote backroad in southern Colorado, a state trooper pulled me over and showed no mercy. I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of paying a shockingly high fine. My calculated risk did not pay off.

Then I remembered back to the parking wardens in Thame, Oxfordshire, England, where we lived from 1995-1998. That town of 11,000 people had a full-time parking enforcement officer. When you arrived downtown, parking had to be paid for and no parking was free.

Be thankful that you can park for free – or that you’ve driven for a while without being pulled over.

I am still taking a break from blogging until 2012, but here’s another post you may have missed. This originally appeared in my first blog on July 20, 2006. Context: I was living in Nairobi, Kenya, Africa. The rules of life are a little different there.

A few weeks ago, a colleague asked me if I would stand in a police line-up. This friend had his identity stolen here in Kenya. A South African white guy stole his credit card info (along with others’) and had made tens of thousands of dollars of purchases.

The police officer said he didn’t know enough white guys to fill a line-up for witnesses to look at. So he asked my colleague if he could find some white men. (Thus, me, along with about eight other colleagues.) My first reaction was, “What if the witnesses think I look more like the criminal than the criminal does? I don’t want to go to prison!” Then he assured me the officer said there was no chance any of us non-criminals would be convicted. Mostly I said yes because my other colleagues did. I figured if they thought it was safe, it probably was safe.

In the end, we didn’t stand in a line, as the criminal chose the option of not standing in a police lineup.

While we were waiting for things to get sorted out, the police officer basically said, “We trust you (white) people.” (And then he implied something like, “This guy really ruined our perceptions!”)

The photo? The police officer gladly gave me the opportunity to take that shot. (You should always carry your camera!) Of note: he had a South African “Temporary Passport” (whatever that is!) and a fake California driver’s license (with the address on the card being, “Queen Rd TX” (Yes, that’s supposed to be “Texas”.) On the back of the “license” it said “Property of the US Government”.

The whole incident really gave me a good feeling about the Kenyan police. They did a great job apprehending the criminal. Admittedly, he did some pretty stupid things, like trying to steal from the same shop three times. (The third strike was his out.)

And another thing he didn’t do was consider the consequences of his actions. In the Nairobi newspaper on the same day as our line-up experience was this story, “Conditions in [Kenyan] Prisons Worst in the World, says Official.”

I am indeed taking a break from blogging until 2012, but I thought you would enjoy a post you may have missed. This originally appeared on January 5, 2011.

When Heather and I first went to Africa (1991), we were part of a 3-month-long training program that was designed to help us love Africa. And adjust to living there. Part of our training involved living with a family in rural Kenya for two weeks.

It was a stretching time, to say the least. (We still keep in touch with one of the family members, which shows you it was a good experience.)

Anyhow, they ate dinner starting at about 9 pm. We were pretty tired by that time of the day, and listening to lively conversation in Kikamba (their language) for several hours was not always our choice of a relaxing way to end the day.

So one night about halfway through our time with the family, just before dinner, Heather and I were chilling in our small room. Our guest knocked on the door to say it was dinnertime. I went to dinner alone. I said, “In our culture, it is wrong to wake someone when they are sleeping.” They bought it – after a little discussion on my part.

I knew she needed a break.