As you have pointed out, nowhere really has a universal culture. And there are different aspects from which we may view each individual. Kamau may have a more self-centred view of his personal aseets than the massai lad, but his social behaviour might still be moderated by a desire to meet the expectations of his own extended family. He might return home regularly to visit his family, he might avoid voicing opinions that contradict those of this father. I can see the possibility of a larger difference between him and Mark, the Lowestoft lad, who left home at 18 to study IT at a polytechnic and whose most frequent visits home were to deal withe the logistics of arranging for his sick mother to go into a nursing home.

I don’t think we really have mucy to learn from those fitures, gathered from many countries. But I have found it interesting that such scales exist and they provide me with fresh mental apparatus for dealing with my day-to-day experiences here.

Its a shame you’ve not documented your own process of adaptation to a different culture as I’d be very pleased to hear stories of it.

I agree that the approaches of NGOs and their effectiveness would be a good topic for another discussion. But I don’t know where to start. My experiences of them are very sketchy (Though I have a few juicy anecdotes).

In a culture where the young are reveared for their strength, vigor and capacity for forward thikning (as opposed to one where the old are reveared for their wisdom and authority), where the needs of the individual outweigh those of the family, and where financial situations allow for monitory (though not emotional) support to be provided by financial instruments such as annuities and insurance policies (as opposed to one where lower cashflow makes such instruments unaffordable) the necessary institutions (nursing homes) develop to fulfill a need that simply would not exist in the ‘alternative’ culture I have hinted at.

I don’t intend this as a justification. I am talking about these things making any kind of sense, rather than their being "right" or "good". As to "why" we do it, the best I can offer is that we do it because it makes sense (remember that that sense is not objective, it is the result of weighing options by a certain value system). While I imagine my mum might have felt deeply sad and afraid that she had enterd a stage of life where she could not care for herself and there was nobody at home who could offer that care either, I doubt if she actually resented me and my siblings for choosing to provide that necessary care in the way we did.

I think that until I started to travel I could hardly conceive that such different value systems could even exist. Until then it would have been impossible for me to make sense of behaviour where issues or personal status and relationships are placed over efficiency and utiility.

Even now I still spit and swear with rage sometimes at the BBC World Service "I love Africa" competition entries. Someone says "I love Africa because blah blah blah" and I shout at my radio "That’s because you are a narrow minded biggot" (That’s just how I get my kicks :laugh: ). These competition entries are, necessarily, personal and subjective. Some of them come from people who have moved away from their continent and who pine for what it has to offer that their new host countries do no. Others, however, seem never to have seen beyond the the next hill and they rejoice in their parochial peculiarity.

Slowly, however, I am developing a model of an alternative value set. One that could have developed in a high context society. Though it is not mine, like a set of overalls provided by an employer, I can slip it on now and then and it keeps me safe from some of the shit that might stick to me otherwise.