Traveling for work in Kenya last month I got to visit one of Nairobi’s high density suburbs – Kayole. It’s a dense, organized, gritty, sprawling area with lots of colour, sadly little of which comes from nature’s green. All around is grey concrete or brown earth. Persuasive advertising, colourful clothes and bright smiles help to raise your spirits in the midst of the litter and poverty.

Housing in Kayole

Kids in Kayole suburb

Bleak school grounds in Kayole

Beauty Salon

Cake shop advertising

Sometimes (often) the behaviour of the Zimbabwe Republic Police force – traffic section – is beyond belief. Take yesterday evening for example. Traffic backed up to, and into the traffic lights at the corner of Glenara/Enterprise Roads. Is it an accident. NO! Is it a motorcade. NO! Is it a tree fallen over the road. NO!

It’s a police roadblock.

Do they rectify the situation when they see the congestion forming. NO!

Carol Ann Duffy wins PEN/Pinter prize: The poet is the fourth recipient of the award, for her ‘independent and sometimes awkward’ responses to living in Britain today.

More from the Guardian

A young boy riding his bicycle on Arcturus Road. No saddle. A loaf of Lobels in one hand.

Outside Oriel Girls High School, scattered broken Castle beer bottles. Why don’t the school authorities clean the area? And where do they come from … predatory sugar daddies?

Phallic fervour

They approach each election
With feral phallic erection
Ask them to zip it
They stomp their feet
For what they fear is rejection