The slow boat ride to paradise

Takawiri Beach

The best day of the trip was the day I thought I had lost my eyesight. My eye doctor (and my mother) will be happy to know I've been reminded of the value of sunglasses. I was nearly blinded by the beauty of it all. (Or it was all that squinting through the glare off the water for eight hours at zero latitude, which my left eye eventually had enough of.)

Mfangano Island is west of Rusinga, and it's a larger and considerably more lush piece of land. As we approached in the small fishing boat we rode on for the day, Dan Nyangweso gave us a short geography lesson. The people of Mfangano, by ancestry the Suba tribe from Uganda who, over the years, has mixed with the Kenyan Luo tribe, have done a remarkable job at preservation. Subsistence farming and fishing were about it as far as industry, similar to Rusinga, but the number of trees covering the hillside set the island apart. That allows Mfangano to be a more attractive destination for tourists, though, outside of an airstrip and one small resort with float planes, as well as boat trips over from Rusinga, it seems like access is still limited.

The fishing villages suffer the same sketchy reputation as those on Rusinga (namely, fisherman are transient and tend to bring problems like alcoholism and prostitution, as well as living conditions of corrugated tin dwellings and environmental problems that result come from washing and bathing in the lake). However, slightly different weather patterns help prevent drought on the island, and sustainable farming practices have prevented erosion or clear-cutting. The hilly geography of the island may help as well, most hillsides are extremely steep and the best transportation is motoring around over the lake rather than walking or driving through. 

Fishing boats on a Mfangano beach.

An African named (really) John Kennedy, with the company of Dan and Ochieng, got us there. We met Kennedy at a beach on the west end of Rusinga, and as the real fishermen were coming in from the night's work the five of us were heading out. Since fishing occurs overnight in Lake Victoria, we had the waters nearly to ourselves.

John Kennedy and Timm. There's actually a good explanation for his name. Next post though.

Kennedy's boat had a little outboard motor, connected to the gas tank by a small hose that seemed to fail regularly at moving the gas to where it needed to be. After the engine stalled out for the third time in the first 20 minutes of the trip, Dan, absolutely deadpan with a little smile, says, "We may have a problem with transport." But Kennedy and Ochieng made sure we never had to paddle or swim, and after maybe an hour we were at the beach. The slow ride was fine, as Dan had time to give us a history lesson and point out the sights as we sailed along the island's shore.

Pretty smart muzungu, bringing his sunglasses and all.

We ended up in a small fishing village, where the women were drying the morning's omena catch. We walked through the row of tin shanties and, on the other end, hit a trailhead not that different from what you'd see at an American state park. The hike was advertised as a 90-minute loop to the summit, and looked like a signed and well-worn path to an ancient rock art site as well.

Looking back on the "trail."

The trail isn't worn from traffic of American hikers like us, however. It's much more likely the transportation network everyone is using. As such, the trail winds through people's yards, crosses the fences they've built to contain livestock, and crosses other trails pretty consistently. Even after stopping to ask several residents if we were headed the right way, we got sidetracked and found ourselves at the top of a long draw.

Luckily, Kennedy had fallen behind. The other four of us were pretty high up a face when we realized it was the wrong side of the little canyon we were trying to get up, so we yelled back down. Two women tending the steepest hillside garden plot you've ever seen, on the facing hillside, talked us down and to another trail. We took that route up a skinny dirt path through her nearly vertical maize farm (past a little dog who's job it was to scare monkeys away!) and met Kennedy. He had the sense to find the ranger who would let us into the rock art site, and who knew the way.

Dan looking at the signs at entrance to the Kwitone rock art site. Timm and I paid to go through the small fence and see it, but somehow Dan talked the ranger into letting the Africans ride for free that day.

Kennedy looks at the rock wall where the markings could be seen. This site was traditionally used by village elders for meetings and ceremonies that included animal sacrifice, we were told. Modern village leaders still use the site for meeting on occasion, and the ranger's full-time job seemed to be to protect the site.

The Kwitone rock art looks like graffiti, but it's actually extremely rare, thousands of years old, and culturally significant because so much African rock art has been defaced or lost. You can see the sun image in these examples, which obviously had significance to an agrarian society.

We scrambled up a rocky path just past the rock art site, found the summit of the mountain and could see in every direction. There were a few other historical sites, such as the clearing where women meet to grind grain, and then took a trail that was more meandering (and much easier to follow) back down to the beach.

We hopped back in the boat and motored for another 30 minutes to the eastern side of the island (as my head started to throb and I realized I didn't put my sunglasses in my pocket). We stopped at a dock and had our day's ugali at a small community museum that had more history of rock art and a small collection of ancient Suba tools and instruments. After lunch we set off again, beached quickly at Mfangano's main village for gas, then headed to Takawiri Beach.

The approach to Takawiri Beach.

There's two reactions I had to Takawiri Beach: First, you're flummoxed to have this pristine, clean, 100-yard stretch of the only white sand beach in the area all to yourself. It was the prettiest place we had landed on the lake, would have been flooded had it been Hawaii or another "destination," but the beach was completely empty on a perfect afternoon for a swim. The second reaction is to be confused (and maybe eventually, disappointed) to see a shuttered resort just back from the beach, still in working condition but unable to take advantage of the potential for tourism that would undoubtedly benefit the region. (And benefit tourists lucky enough to stay at a place so remote, peaceful and beautiful.)

The shuttered resort. See how nicely kept the grounds are. It was odd, almost like a ghost town.

We swam in the lake, sat on the beach, walked around the six empty (but surprisingly well-kept) cabins and pagodas, and then met the caretaker. He said we could have all the coconuts we wanted — as long as we picked them ourselves. After watching us (all of us, not just the clueless muzungus) struggle with a strategy to actually climb the trees, the caretaker brought a ladder and long stick to us. Wiseguy.

Somebody's been to Takawiri Beach...

The last stop on the boat tour cycle was Birds Island. This small island just south of Rusinga is a protected habitat, though Dan told us there's some need for better protection by government or wildlife groups — someone recently tried to squat on the island, and we could see a field of maize someone was obviously cultivating. The name of the island, of course, tells you what's being protected. Lake Victoria is one of the most diverse areas in the world for species of birds, and Birds Island seemed to have most of them. I'm not ornithologist, so I can't cite names for you. But there were trees and rocks turned white with bird poop, if that helps with the mental picture of how many birds are circling. I was squinting pretty heavily by this point and could really only open one eye. (And I was getting a little scared, actually. I'm not an opthamologist either, and I doubted anyone on Rusinga was.)

But what I could see was fairly stunning. Here's a few photos for you bird-watchers. Keep in mind I was shooting a little, well, blind at this point:

That day was our most "touristy," outside the safari excursion at the end of the trip. I've emailed with Dan Nyangweso since returning, and he told me he's now part of a small task force planning strategies to better take advantage of the region's attractions like Mfangano, Takawiri and Birds Island. To me this seems a bit like our interest in organic fruit, which I mentioned a few posts back. That is, as Americans we're often seeking the way things used to be, and in tourism that means finding preserved spaces or the rare place that isn't commercialized or full of other visitors. But Dan, like Vitalis and his comment about how GMO crops would be widely welcomed in Kenya, would love to grapple with the headaches of a tourism industry. I'd hate to see a McDonald's there, but I'd also hate to see such a special place stagnate without being shown to the outside world.

When you go to visit Rusinga, make sure this type of a trip is part of your itinerary. You'll see a variety of landscapes, meet people outside the villages, learn some history, feel the sun and wind over Lake Victoria, and be stunned by a postcard-perfect beach and pristine island wildlife. Just don't forget your sunglasses, or you'll be wearing them the next few days to readjust your vision.

Rusinga in moving pictures

Here's a little video with some sights and sounds. The girls singing are a group that meets at Sabina's home every weekend. It's an extension of the women's group, in a way, and this girls club teaches health education and empowerment to girls ages 5 or so to teenagers. The full title of the song they are singing is "I've walked around the world, but haven't found anyone like Jesus." Also in the video are students at KMSS, fishermen at Literi Beach, the Kamasengre women's group, some scenics from around Rusinga and in Lake Victoria, and a few comments on what a few people from Rusinga Island think of their home.

A woman's world on Rusinga Island

I've painted a fairly rosy picture of Rusinga Island and Kenya in sharing these wonderful memories. But if you follow the news these days or just understand the third world, you know the warm stories and lovely photos aren't a completely true representation of the country.

We enjoyed friendly welcomes, saw beautiful smiles on children and experienced the postcard-perfect safari plain, but couldn't ignore shanties along the highway and trash strewn about, or avoid hearing stories of HIV orphans and the aftermath of recent political violence, or close our eyes to some real poverty and suffering in the fishing camps or other slums we walked through.

This post isn't to wax about the paradox. We met several people actively doing something about their country's struggles, and I prefer to share those stories. You need to know them to know about modern Kenya, and perhaps learn about how to help, yourself.

Marren Ojode, me, and Vitalis Ojode, at their home in Runda.

Marren Ojode is Theodora's sister, and a retired teacher in Nairobi. When we arrived in Kenya we stayed at the home of Marren and her husband, Vitalis. They were not there at the time, because they were in the United States. They were visiting family, and Marren had participated in a conference in New York City.

About 23 years ago Marren was a founding member of the Sanja Women's Group, a community organization that was formed to help women socially and economically, particularly in rural areas near Lake Victoria, where Rusinga Island is found. At the time water-born disease was a major threat, so one of the first initiatives was a series of clean water projects.

Sanja Women's Group was accepted by the government's Ministry and Culture and Social Services, and today women's groups exist throughout the country through a similar government office, including 16 near Lake Victoria. They are not funded by the government, though they do receive assistance through training workshops and grant possibilities. Two men are allowed to join each group as advisors.

Women are at several disadvantages in African culture, a male-dominated society in many ways. With the HIV epidemic, women are often widowed without an education or job skills to fall back upon. They are less likely to be educated because girls drop out of school if they become pregnant. Because of the demands of running households, particularly in rural areas, women are less likely to have job skills that translate outside of the home. If a husband dies or leaves, the woman is left with few resources, and in a economy as insular as that of Rusinga Island, options are very limited.

The women's groups have been a positive force in changing that paradigm. Through health and HIV education, economic training and cooperative businesses organized by groups, clean water projects and simply connecting women in a organizational structure, they promote healthier and more independent women, which in turn produces a more stable and successful community. Marren remains involved in the effort that has spread across Kenya, and the conference in New York was to further training she would bring back to her home country.

The Carlton Peterson Women's Group, Kaswango.

On Rusinga Island we met with two women's groups. The first, Carlton Peterson Women's Group, was a younger organization that, to be honest, was struggling to get projects off the ground. The Peterson Group, named in honor of a late Covenant minister from Minnesota and friend of my father's who spent time working with the people of Rusinga Island, is located in the neighborhood of Kaswango.

The district is located on a hill that overlooks Kamasengre, where we stayed. At the higher elevation the women struggle to adequately irrigate their crops. The sukuma wiki in their shamba was smaller than crops we saw around the island, inhibiting the group's ability to harvest and sell to share profits between members. Without a pump system to bring water up the hill, farm manager Joyce Awuor told us, the labor required to keep the farm going, particularly during drought years, is an incredible obstacle to success on a large enough scale to affect the dozen women in the group.

Timm helps the Peterson Women's Group with the nightly irrigation.

The Peterson group also opened a nursery school in recent years, where children are taught by a young woman named Pamela Odhiambo. She has a warm smile and youthful energy, but very little formal teaching education and fewer resources. Pamela's school was a square hut with low ceilings, small windows and an open room divided in two, perhaps 10 feet by 10 feet on either side. She had an alphabet cut from cardboard so children could arrange letters, an easel, and some pads of paper. As we spoke she jotted down a list of items that would help; things we wouldn't imagine even starting a kindergarten class without — paper, pens, books or balls — remain on Pamela's long-range wish list.

But the Peterson group was fortunate to have land, leased at no charge by the male advisor, and supplies for a nascent business in making and selling hand soap door to door. They also offer health classes for girls, and help in fencing what are called "kitchen gardens," so families can grow vegetables for themselves that will not be eaten by stray goats. Last, and perhaps most encouraging, was the average age of the Peterson group's members. Several appeared to be in their twenties or perhaps early thirties, and involvement from the younger generation must be a sign that growth is possible, if not inevitable with the energy and desire we heard.

The second group we met was the Kamasengre West Women's Group, a more established organization with an older membership. The Kamasengre group has more than 20 members, who sell vegetables from their garden and have raised trees to be sold and planted around Rusinga over several years. With a shamba located on the shore of Lake Victoria, and thanks to some help in building a pump and fence from the nonprofit Soul Source Foundation and our friends Matt Peterson, Luke Bruckner and Peter Morris, the Kamasengre women have made their shamba a model of a good farm. In addition, those three and Gayle Hammer, another friend of ours who spent three months on Rusinga, helped the women craft a business plan that has taught them bookkeeping, investment planning and farm management.

Lunch with the women of Kamasengre West.

Our host on Rusinga Island, Sabina Otiendo, is a leader in the group. She explains more about the members and mission in the video below (and keep watching, there's a song at the end).



The story of these women's groups is encouraging, but also far from complete. As I wrote before, the Kamasengre group benefited greatly in the past year from the help of four Americans, though unfortunately that hands-on guidance is rare. Soul Source Foundation, which is the non-profit that Operation My People also operates through, has the mission of making that help, either in person or financially from abroad, more common. To read more about that organization's mission and background, visit its website.