Rain and Tour
by hmsbarman
Paradise on earth!
You don't have to worry about rainy season, following global warming no weeks of solid rain in April and May now days, perhaps we should expect heavy down pours in late June and July. You are most welcomed to Malindi. Malindi is my meeting point where I meet my friends, school mates and business associates. I can't finish six months without going to Malindi. This year I met new friend from Italy.
not only a tourist resort
by call_me_rhia
Malindi is a sea-side resort in the north on Mombasa - and it's especially frequented by Italians, possibly because so many have raved about it. I think that about 2500 of them have moved permanently into this town and opened up businesses - namely hotels and the casino. I went in low-season and I found it quite pleasant: very uncrowded (all hotels except three were open) and low-key. I guess that in the high season it can be hell. Definitely not the beach: in some months it gets covered in seaweed and it's not too pleasant for swimming - but it doesn't matter: Watamu beach is only about 20 minutes away and seaweed-free (and it's also much nicer). What I liked about Malindi is the African town: the colourful houses and shops, the lively markets, people going about in their everyday life. Simply wonderful.
Drinking Mnazi
by muguruki
Mnazi is the wine created naturally when the shoot that is about to form a new coconut is chopped off and over the end of the shoot a container is placed to collect the sap that is produced. For many months when I was staying in the are near Watamu I was living next door to a young chap who's profession was a mnazi tapper. Twice a day he would shin up a coconut tree and pour the collected sap into a container. These trees would be scattered around the area. If a tree was used for tapping no proper fruit would form on the rest of thre palm.
Nothing else is done to the sap it is just sold as it comes from the tree usually by the litre bottle. I used to buy 3 bottles and that was enough to get me off my face. The traditional way of drinking it is by pouring some into a gourd and then drunk through a straw (mboko) with coconut fibres on the bottom to stop all the small dudus (insects) getting sucked up the straw. I found it a lot easier to pour it into a glass through a tea strainer easy peasy.
In December 2008 the going rate for a bottle of mnazi was 30 bob.
the art of recycling
by call_me_rhia
Kenyan people at great at recycling things and making use of them. My fondest memory in this sense is these two men playing "dama", or whatever way they call it locally or in English, at a local craft-centre.. They had drawn the board on an old table and then used painted drink caps as pawns. Absolutely "genial". Other recycled items I saw were shoes made out of used cars' tyres and several toys from pop cans.
Gedi - village
by croisbeauty
I am not quite sure wheter this tribe belongs to Giriamas or Teitas, both of them are pretty small communities situated in the southern part of Kenya nearby the ocean. Teitas are known for their women who even nowadays practice topless.
Anyway, the welcoming dances were almost spectacular and we enjoyed alot.
This people have rhytm in their blood, no doubt about that. I had chance to watch two of their performances and each one was different, with lots of improvisations, although the basic moves were always the same.