Finally! I have arrived in Kenya! After a hectic month (without blogging; sorry) I'm starting the work here. Although based in Nairobi, my colleagues and I will be travelling around a lot, and we've already been for a week-long holiday in Mombasa. I promised my teachers I would draw a lot here, but I'll also be taking a lot of pictures of interesting architecture (and some times other things), and will have things to blog about, no worries.
I was walking along the Indian Ocean on Diani Beach on South Coast near Mombasa, and passed this wonderful wavy wall. Constructed in the coral stone typical of the region, it creates both warm, sunny spots and shaded areas, and protrusions out into the beach with earth for the coconut palms to grow in.
In its natural form, the coral rock forms big cliffs, and by the sea it will often be covered in plants, with a dark surface and weathered by the waves like this one. It's chopped up into box shapes that are sold at 25 ksh each and used everywhere in the coastal areas, also in new construction, where is actually often is smoothed over with cement plaster. Here's a new building with walls made of coral stone, presumably covered up to look like concrete:
A whitewashed coral stone wall:
A worn coral stone wall. Note how it's white at the bottom, probably due to being worn from water running down during the two rain seasons in Coastal Kenya:
Finally, a picture of yours truly by the Indian Ocean, just to prove it's all true. Oh, and the horizon is horizontal in Kenya as well, I just haven't gotten any proper graphics software for my new computer yet.
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