Our Neighborhood

From Annie 11/9/19 Take my hand—we are going for a walk. After you see what I saw in three blocks, you’ll understand why walking may be boring when I get home. People here do so much living outside—working, talking, walking, rushing, building, repairing, buying, selling, eating, waiting in line for a ride. Life goes on for all the world to see.

Imagine New York City with no subway. Every time I go out, it feels like all 13 million people are trying to get somewhere at the same time.  

I wonder if we Americans value privacy so much that it stifles our humanity. We keep our circle of family and friends tight and are often too busy for strangers or even neighbors. I’m told that here taxis fill up with total strangers who become friends by the time they are dropped off. People talk to each other. It is not all right to walk by someone without saying, “Bonjour!”  You do not look away. Your eyes meet. I love that!

1. A high-end clothing store worthy of City Creek Mall
2. Pricy apartment building,
3. One of thousands of buildings fully occupied on the lower floors with cinder block skeletons above
4. A woman tending her banana and melon stand
5. A construction site where workers make cinder blocks and hand mix cement, one bag at a time

1. The LDS (Mormon) temple, with its perfect grass and gardens.
2. Flowers outside the temple gate
3. More flowers and more flowers
4. A little guy trying to knock mangos out of the tree, then running happily away with one in each hand
5. Men perched on top of cement bags on a moving truck as if lounging in a park

1. Billboard selling faster internet that will make everything in your life better
2. Rusty old gates
3. The only outdoor garbage cans I’ve seen
4. Lavish, ornate gates protecting luxury apartments.
5. A place to change a tire
6. Billboard advertising deluxe condos rising above the poverty

1. A wall painted to look like a food stand
2. Tiny flowers growing between the trash
3. Man in a long white robe with a friend wearing a question on his back
4. Cell tower behind a flowering tree behind more barbed wire

1. A hang-out for homeless street kids (We’ve started dropping off bags of apples instead of giving them money)

2. A luxury van arriving home

1. Graffiti about the endangered forests and the okabi
2. No, this wasn’t on the street, but it’s a photo of an okabi (zebra/giraffe).
3. Bold green suit and hot pink shirt; great fashion statements
4. Boiled egg seller
5. Fancy lady in red heels in need of a motorcycle taxi, Notice the list of drinks for sale.
6. A super-hero selling laundry detergent

1. Woman outside the store, so lost in thought
2. Skip’s sweaty back after three blocks of walking
3. Muslim woman checking out the Christmas tree
4. The friendly master gardener of a roadside nursery

1. Lady in an outfit featuring maps of the African continent
2. Laundry drying
3. Food stands where we can buy a Coke
4. The little shed where everything is put away for the night

• 

The children of Kinshasa who are not in school, smiling because we just bought some of their greens. I told her she was “jolie” (French for pretty) and she beamed.

Three blocks. Thirty minutes. So much life.