Bunchland

Joanna Goldberg sends biweekly communiqués from Kenya, where she’s living with her kid

My friend back home generously spent five times the value of the contents to send a package over to Cameron. A couple Saturdays back, Cameron and I set off into the city centre to face the ordeal of having to claim it. Apart from the location of all bus/matatu stages, Java coffee shops and the best places to buy fabric, I don’t know the city centre very well, which is why we jumped off the moving matatu at the wrong post office. Realizing my mistake, Cameron and I just started walking towards the next biggest post office I had casually heard about (the package delivery notice did not indicate where the package was, exactly).  Read more...

Check out these awesome kid-designed commuter trains in Japan! In 2007, when Odakyu Railway was looking for a way to include families and children in their public transit plan, kids were asked to draw pictures to be placed on the trains. The railway ran a contest and winning drawings were painted on the exteriors of some of the cars. Inside, the trains were adorned with prints of the designs that didn’t make it onto the sides of trains. During the time that the kids designs were in circulation, commuters reported a greater feeling of well-being on these trains.  According to (now defunct) PingMag: “If passengers look at these bright drawings on their way to work, it puts instantly a smile on their faces.“