I think I must have walked through a middle class neighborhood today. It was off a major road in Addis. While there were many aspects typical of a rural village such as mud and straw houses, corrugated steel, spices and vegetables spread out in the sun, chickens running around, ect. There were also satellites on top of the houses, plastic chairs children in nice school uniforms asking to shake our hands (vs. begging for money), and a sort of confidence on the faces of people suggesting a sort of middle class confidence.
I am always interested in the middle class of the countries I visit. Everywhere you go there will be wealthy people and poor people, but the middle class is what drives things that are interesting. While the wealthy folks do their best to imitate western styles of fashion, entertainment, and luxury and the poor struggle to get by, the middle class strikes a balance between tradition and the modern life. So what does this look like? If looks like a satellite on top of a corrugated steel roof on top of a mud hut in the city off of a main road in the capital city.
So where are you? Are you struggling to keep up with the fashions of New York and Tokyo? Are you interested in preserving the sometimes hokey traditions of the past and make them part of your new life? Can you innovate solutions to housing, transportation using local materials and fixes?
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