![]() The chattering of colobus monkeys can be heard from the vine-covered porches of neat, gabled cottages where teachers and staff members live. The soccer team battles its rivals on a manicured green field with the black volcanic cone of nearby Mount Longonot looming in the background. ![]() It looks and feels like a small Midwestern town that has been suddenly transported to the edge of the Grand Canyon. ![]() It is a green American village, resounding with prayers and hymns, perched incongruously at 7,000 feet on the rim of a vast, arid, primeval tear in the fabric of the African continent. The school is Rift Valley Academy, one of the world's oldest and largest boarding schools for missionary children. There, they struggled with the slang and the alien values and tried to fit in for six months or a year - until they could come home, to Africa. America was a foreign place half a world away, where they went every few years on furlough with their families. They had grown up in places like Tanzania or Zaire or Rwanda, where their parents were working as missionaries. In spite of their bluejeans and their accents, most knew more about life in Africa than in America. Although most of Kiambi's classmates were Americans, none rushed to respond. "Because I thought you had total freedom of speech."Ĭase waited a moment. "Where do they put the limit on freedom of speech?" she asked. The young Kenyan pushed back a tangle of fine black braids and looked around at her classmates and at her government teacher, Jay Case. KIJABE, KENYA - The subject was politics, and Vicki Kiambi was puzzled about the United States.
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