Traditionally, many of the houses that people built in Equatorial Guinea (with the exception of colonial buildings) were made of wood and covered with nipa (a type of palm). The wood that is currently found in the markets of the cities comes from the country itself, and usually has the same measurements in all places according to its functions (column, beam, purlin, plank, etc.), which means that all the houses built in this way can have the same appearance. At the same time, every citizen has something to sell, most of the houses are in turn a bar, a hairdresser's or a grocery shop. This means that each person wants to give an identity to their service-dwelling, so that every time you walk through any neighbourhood in the periphery of the city, outside the colonial centres, you can find a whole wonderful series of modifications to this way of building that make it a heterogeneous and complex place.