The "white world" of the Kenyan coast is about thirty miles north of Malindi.
After the golden shore of Che Shale, beyond the Italian base of the San Marco aerospace project, the ocean view disappears and miles and miles of salt looms.
Iodized sea salt, more or less, through the industries that have spread this stretch of coast, serve the whole country.
Here the salt is everywhere: stacked in small dunes at the sides of dirt roads that create open labyrinths, sudden islands in the middle of the water where pink flamingos pass, in huge crystallized rock mountains that will be split and placed on old and Unstable trucks, to be transported to the refinery area.
The landscape is lunar, often the white tanks blend with the clouds on the horizon and the sky is struggling to clear its contours.
But beyond the unmistakable show, salt is also in the faces and thoughts of people in the area, even very young women, who go to work early in the morning. For them salt is a daily damnation, blends into the sun to burn the skin, creeps into fatigue sores, lays on ever lazy soda water. They do not like talking about their work, saline employees.
And yet we know that a decade ago, the first employees of all of Kenya were striking to protest against the bad working conditions they had to undergo. Today things go a bit better, but life is the same in the endless expanses of the "white world." Salt splitting the skin and sun burning it.
For one and a half a day. Maybe you can save something on the food, fishing while struggling with the tiny little fish like anchovies that will flavor a polenta dish that can not always be accompanied by tomato and vegetables.
So touch the salt in the flavor of the food.
Africa is the backdrop to this area, and taking one of the streets formed by the slums that divide the salt pans, one can get to Robinson Island, an island where Nature returns to make it a master, between mangroves and Sand, and where you can taste very good crabs.
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