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

From Freedom Fone’s latest newsletter:

Reproductive Health Hotline runs on Freedom Fone in Kenya

June 2012 found our technical team in Nairobi, hosted by Women on Waves and partners, to train reproductive health activists on how to use Freedom Fone to complement their information services. The Aunty Jane Hotline was officially launched on 19 June to provide Kenyan women with reproductive health information in English and Swahili. The Aunty Jane Hotline will make use of Freedom Fone’s IVR, voicemail and SMS functionalities to share life saving reproductive health information, and to receive feedback and questions.

A comment from the streets on the lifting of sanctions:

The EU has decided to lift targeted sanctions imposed on Mugabe and his cronies? No doubt to become major players in the economic life of Zimbabwe, no doubt to vie with the Chinese in resource plunder. Right time 4 them but betrayal for Zimbabwe. Oil the Zanu-PF machine and what future 4 democracy with a rejuvenated gerontocracy. With friends like these… truly sad. – Samir

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

The Zimbabwean artist, Kudzanai Chiurai, is one hot dude. Talented and then some.

Whether they’re hanging inside prestigious art hotspots, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, or in the houses of Elton John and Richard Branson, the thought-provoking creations of Kudzanai Chiurai have captivated audiences across the world.

More here from CNN