Last month (is it really September? Oh my), I encountered several versions of stories about the charity organization that decided to just give money, no strings attached, directly to the people they sought to help. (NPR transcript here.)

Turns out, this village in Kenya, the recipients took their windfall and invested it in their futures. However, one thing many people did that First World outsiders found interesting was, they often used some of the money to replace their thatch roofs with metal roofs. I can understand that. Thatch involves maintenance, and apparently, in this area anyway, the right thatch-grass had to be purchased, and was not inexpensive. The metal took up-front money few had, but seemed an obvious purchase for many—clearly!

This roof (not grass/thatch) looks like it would have taken at least annual attention….

This entry was posted in archaeology on Monday, 2 September 2013 at 10:22 pm.
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