Every rural road leading inland from the Kenyan coast is an uneven carpet of clay that, as vehicles pass by or the wind suddenly blows, deposits its orange dust on plants, stones and wooden huts.
Even people are covered in it, impregnated.
They breathe it, sleep on it, eat and drink from it and, when they bathe or wash their rags, they find it in the river.
A people of clay in slow, perpetual motion, pregnant women with infants slung over their shoulders like terracotta matryoshkas, prancing children and impassive old men, statues with skin rougher than the ground and eyes of infinite depth, which is normal for those who for decades have mirrored themselves daily in this sky.

One ascends and descends through the green hills of Africa, as Hemingway called them. You meet ramshackle articulated lorries carrying wood or cement, matatu loaded with commuters in need, a few off-road vehicles of those who have gone elsewhere to seek their fortune and return to breathe clay and family air.
On either side of the carpet is another family, the green home of Nature. Baobabs, palms and acacias take the contours of the immense sky and leave the land to the cornfields and the roofs of dried palms that announce the mud huts sunk in bright red and slaves to the earth like millenary sculptures.
The red mantle doesn't let go, not even when you enter the dense bush, you pass elementary schools with manicured lawns and plasterwork that matches the schoolchildren's uniforms.

The clearings are village squares with probable but unpronounceable names, inhabited by motorbike taxis perpetually waiting for customers, fruit and vegetable stalls, small bazaars selling soap, loose cigarettes and flour. This red earth, this dust that gets in your eyes, nose and ears, is Africa.
If you live it, it gets into your blood, and you yourself, walking its streets, feel it coursing through the veins of the clay giant.
Asphalt will never be able to wipe it out, just as it is impossible to erase the path, the history, the wild and peasant soul of this continent.