Action-man, 5 June, Birmingham, England

I am in a flat in Solihull, England. Uncle Al and Aunt Julie live here. Drew and I are sleeping in a narrow double bed. Its corners are low and sharp. I have a purple mark on my knee from a fresh hit. The walls of the flat are white and bare. Below the wide-ledged windows are open radiators. Aunt Julie told me that the kitchen is a "one-man kitchen." She made me leave the kitchen after dinner so she could do the dishes.

Uncle Al and Aunt Julie park their small car (everything is bigger in the United States) underground. An iron fence makes the building look "exclusive" and formidable to thieves. To get in, Aunt Julie punched a five-digit code at the front gate and at the door.

A year ago, Uncle Al came to England to plant a church in Solihull--Solihull Presbyterian Church. Solihull is south of Birmingham. Today, we drove and walked through Birmingham. I didn't see very many white people or hear very much English. The streets are full of foreigners--Middle Eastern women in burkes with varying degrees of exposure, Indian shopkeepers and dark Pakistani boys in English soccer jerseys. Shop crowds shop and merchandise crowds the sidewalks like a street in Monrovia.

But that's Birmingham. Solihull is quiet and private. Ethnic Brits live here and send their children to private schools. By morning, the children walk to school and the parents to work. Aunt Julie calls them the "busy tribes." In the evening, the roads are empty and the shops are closed.

Sam