I SHOULD HAVE BEEN overwhelmed. After all, I was in Nairobi National Park in Kenya, one of the few wildlife parks adjacent to a capital city. Three lionesses had just passed by me, unmindful of the crush of gaping tourists and ignoring the persistent clicks of cameras. However, my eyes remained transfixed on the horizon.
There, on a flat landscape—its backdrop spattered equally with the orange hue of the morning sun and the brown of hung dust—several concrete pillars stood erect, cutting across the national park for as far as the eyes could see. On them ran a train track, over which an orange-white train slid smoothly. The whole construct seemed as if built by extraterrestrial creatures who may have landed on Earth last night, and who found this jungle a suitable place to land their ships.
This concrete stretch seemed irreconcilable with its surroundings. It looked ugly.
“What’s that?” I asked
