It's a Mode of Survival. I can't believe I haven't mentioned it before now.
It is the second most important reason that you are always nice and smiley with your neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances. (The first most important being that, despite being scattered literally from wherever you are to Timbuktu, the foreign service community is eensy weensy and it's just nicer if everyone is nice).
Here is an excerpt from the classified section of this week's school newsletter:
Anisa Flowers, under the green umbrella, (next to the clay pots and garden chimneys), on the side of the Limuru Road, between Redhill Rd and the Shell petrol station before Village Market, is one of the most reliable, and reasonable suppliers of excellent quality flowers in Kenya!
Yes, that is how you find a run-of the-mill business. Without The Social Network, how would you know the lady under the green umbrella is so much better than the guy with the wooden awning on the corner of Redhill and Thigiri at the sign for the turn to New Muthaiga? Just try looking it up on the yellow pages.
Yet another benefit of sending your kid to the missionary school: Missionaries actually spend time living here, and in addition to providing hilarious or horrifying tales of the crazy things they have endured because "the government" does not see to their comfort, the Missionary School Social Network has a memory that is easily 10 or even 20 years old.
From barber to ballet instructors, if you ask around you will find someone who knows someone who can give you a phone number, and soon enough you and your family are set. Just be prepared for the phone calls, because word gets around. Soon enough someone will give your number to someone else so they can find that ballet instructor too.
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