Hokeilen Art
Monica Hokeilen, artist
The CBD had very familiar types of buildings, signs, vehicles, and people as I’ve seen in other cities. The cars moved faster and closer together, but otherwise it could have been almost any city.
We frequently saw small stands of fresh fruits and vegetables set up along the side of the road.
We frequently saw small stands of fresh fruits and vegetables set up along the side of the road.
Many of the restaurants we went to were open-air. The weather was so perfect, it was a wonderful way to eat.
The food courtyard at the mall.
Plants hanging in pots created a visual wall at Jiko Restaurant.
The path through a residential garden in Nairobi.
There was lots of traffic on the 2-lane highway from Nairobi to the Great Rift Valley and beyond, most of which were trucks.
We saw so many people on motorcycles overflowing with cargo of all sorts.
Buildings, cars, signs. No pavement or lawn between the buildings and road.
The stands of fresh fruits and vegetables set up along the side of the road were smaller outside the city.
We saw a lot of vans being used as public transportation (or taxis). It was also common to see livestock wandering free of fenced spaces.
In some rural areas, there were giant greenhouses where flowers were grown for export.
Small buildings along the road down into the Great Rift Valley. Notice the water containers on the roof of the building on the right.
With no running water or sewage system at this location, this porta-potty style bathroom relied on gravity.
Along the road down into the Great Rift Valley, small buildings made mostly of shipping containers and tree branches served as tourist stops with local handcraft goods, souvenirs, and bottle water/soda for sale.
We got bottled sodas and hot dawa here one day on our way back up to Nairobi from the Great Rift Valley.
The cafe seating had an amazing view of farmland below.
Occasionally I did need to use a toilet outside of the city and found the differences fascinating!
The view outside the bathroom was breathtaking.
Farms in the Great Rift Valley
We frequnently saw people shepherding small herds of livestock and work animals. There were no fences to keep them from crossing into the path of cars. Sometimes donkeys just roamed in parking lots and along the side of the road.
A Kenyan man walks with his herd of cattle, goats, and donkeys along the side of the road.
A Kenyan man moved donkeys pulling a cart full of a harvested crop (sorghum, maybe?) along the road where cars and trucks and motorcycles zoomed by.
The few other passengers on this road that ran past farms and small villages were mostly people on motorcycles, pedestrians, and with livestock.
Always, when we saw a flock of sheep or other group of livestock, there would be a shepherd with them.
A rural home and farm with fields of tea beyond.
Laundry hanging on the line, cattle resting on the grass, fields of tea beyond.
Turning 180 degrees from the previous two pictures, fields of tea roll over hills with a giant house beyond.
Men and women do laundry on the bank of Lake Naivasha.
Wild plants growing near Lake Naivasha.
Many buildings were made with a rough brick.
In the rural areas we drove through, buildings and fences were made of rough brick, tree branches, and corrugated metal sheets.
The same building materials we saw in rural areas were used in this open-air restaurant we went to on the bank of Lake Naivasha. Kente cloth pillows and cushions created relaxed seating. Tree branches were used throughout the interior: walls, furniture, vertical posts to hold up the roof, and the cross-beams in the roof that supported the corrugated metal sheets. Like nearly all the other restaurants we visited, this was open-air.
Tree branches created the structure for couches and roof, woven light fixtures hung overhead, with a large fireplace in the center, a full bar at the other end of the room, next to a ping pong table.
The use of tree branches as walls, with gaps filled with what looked like plaster, combined with the woven light fixtures and kente cloth cushions, this was open-air impressively beautiful. And the food was delicious.
Of course, there was outside seating options as well
This beautiful building was surrounded by gardens and sculpture, and had several rooms showing rotating exhibits of beautiful artwork inside.
The cat chooses to sit on top of the table, naturally.
photo credit: Dannii Purdy
Outside the international airport in Nairobi, Kenya.