how is it that

a makeshift roadside stall in Nairobi, erected on planks and boards, stacked on rocks on the ground, spread with sacking material, carries a wider, more appealing range of fruit and vegetables than the chi-chi high-end Rockridge Market Hall in my Oakland, CA neighborhood? Passion fruit, bananas, melons, watermelons, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, onions, kale, maize, yams, cassava, pawpaws, avocadoes, mangoes .....all chemical-free (except for the coating of exhaust fumes from passing vehicles). A kilo of each costs less than a single avocado in California.

And how is it that a poor public primary school here, dilapidated buildings, peeling paint, cracked windows, still has a grass-covered playing field larger than the entire acreage of some of the Bay Area's best schools, in all their glass-fibre-optic-concrete, uber-equipped glory?