In Kenyan offices and Malian farms, in Moroccan tea houses and Nigerian huts normal people of various backgrounds go about their day. For them, life in the developing world isn’t about desperate squalor or improbable triumph; it’s a complex, imperfect existence at odds with the stunning pictures beamed out from African safaris or the sad stories written to spur donations to Western aid groups. On a single day at the messy juncture of tradition and modernity, six people from different geographic and cultural backgrounds describe six versions of the African story.