Get ready for a long one folds...

Stepping off the matatu (the bus) in Kisumu coming back from Mbita, I was immediately surrounded – bota-bota drivers wanting your business, women selling you fruit or other wares, men calling out – I was definitely back in the city. In Mbita, children are always shouting out “Mzungu, how are you?” (that is the only phrase they know) and we know that probably, we are some of the first white people they’ve seen. People are scared to even talk to us unless we say hello first. It is refreshing to see their smiles when we say “O ya ore (oh yaa oray)” which means “good morning”, or hear their laughter when we say “Idhi Nade” (good afternoon) – it fills me with much more pleasure than hearing “hey beautiful woman, come with me!” from some creepy guy here in Kisumu. Coming back and getting to see the kids, though, is enough reward to deal with any big city – and let me tell you, coming back was no easy task!

Rainy season has started here and in Mbita, everything turns to thick, sticky mud. No one is out, no one will drive – everything comes to a standstill while it is raining. Usually, the rain comes, rains really hard for an hour and then moves on, but Thursday evening, a huge storm rolled in. The wind was blowing so hard, trees fell over and anything not tied down was blowing around! There are huge water tanks set up to catch the rainwater, but they kept getting blown over, so there we are, all standing and pushing with all our might to get these barrels to stand back up, while there is dust and crazy rain pelting us. We succeeded, the barrels filled with water and all was well. The problem came the next morning.

It had rained all night long and everything was swampy. Kelsey and I had planned on taking the 10 am ferry and when it came time to leave, it was only sprinkling, so we decided to brave the weather. We had to walk to the main road, because no one could drive to where we were with all the mud – by the time we got there, our legs were covered in mud. We were planning on catching a moto, but of course, right when we got to the road, the downpour started. We were soaked in less than a minute. We found shelter and huddled, with around 15 other people, under this tiny little shed, hoping the rain would let up. It finally did slightly and by that time, there were two moto drivers there taking shelter anyway. We hired them, got on and of course, the second we started going down the road, the rain started again. This time, we just kept going. I couldn’t even keep my eyes open, it was raining so hard; every time I looked to the side, everyone standing under shelter was just laughing! I’m sure they thought we were crazy. There was another moto riding near us – the passenger on that one was quite the picture: a man holding a dead chicken in one hand and his shoes in the other, going along like it was just any normal day. Which, it really was. We finally made it to the ferry – now nothing was dry, not us and not any of our stuff. We were freezing! And of course, had missed the 10 o’clock ferry. There was supposed to be an 11am one, but hiccup number two: that one was broken. Here we are, sopping wet, freezing and no transportation. So now we had the choice of either waiting until 2pm (that sounded miserable) or hiring a small motor boat (much more appealing). Actually, right as we decided to try and find one, a motor boat pulled up to the ferry landing and we plus about 15 other people all piled in. Off we went, with a tarp draped across the tops of all of us to protect us from the rain.

When we got to the other side, we caught a matatu right away and got lucky, because it was mostly empty. We went to the back and changed (ah the things you’ll do in desperate situations!) and then road the bumpy two-hour ride back to Kisumu. When we got off that bus, we must have looked bedraggled, because when we walked into YGC, everyone took one look at us and goes “What happened to you?”. Ha ha.

That’s what makes for good traveling though, eh?

Food has been another interesting experience here – it’s always a mystery what we will get next, especially in Mbita. We had to adjust fast to the fact that when they say we’re eating chicken, they mean the whole thing (same thing goes for fish – goat and beef they trim slightly more). Watching Meghan’s face (one of the other volunteer’s here) fall when she opened up the pot one night and saw the chicken’s head entangled with its foot was priceless – needless to say, she lost her appetite at that point. I, on the other hand, picked up the head and handed it to one of the boys from the vocational school – it’s a delicacy for them. Blecch. Most of the food is pretty tasty – we have plantains A LOT and beans and potatoes. We also eat “sakuma”, a green that tastes a lot like swiss chard or kale. In Mbita, the flew on the stove was broken, so everything had a slight smokiness to it, but that’s all part of the experience.

Last weekend, we went to an island called Takaweri, about an hour’s boat ride from Mbita. Saturday morning, we all piled into Simon’s truck and drove down to the lake. At that point, it was raining a little and the wind had started to pick up. Our boat was waiting for us when we got there, so we loaded everything into the boat and started getting in. At that point, the driver started pushing us away from shore and instructed one of the guys with us to pull up the anchor. The problem was, his motor wasn’t running yet and he couldn’t get it started. They tried to hold the boat steady with their bamboo pole, but the waves were huge and the wind was blowing like crazy! The birds couldn’t even fly – they got blown backwards. So the next thing we know, the whole boat is being pushed sideways back into the shore. We all jump out, hike up our skirts and soon, are up to our necks in the water, trying to push the boat the other way. We tried that for about 15 minutes – we were laughing SO hard. We were pretty sure at this point that this was the first time this guy had driven a boat (we found out later that he’d rented the boat, so yeah, it was his first time…) and after awhile, we gave up. We secured the boat on land and resolved to try again the next day – which was a successful attempt and we spent a relaxing 24 hours on Takaweri, playing football and laying on lounge chairs reading books. The only dampener was that I may have fallen asleep in the sun and completely fried my backside – to the point where I literally could not sit for the next 24 hours because my thighs were so burnt and painful. I thought I had been in the sun for about 15 minutes, but it had been more like an hour. No amount of sunscreen protects against that amount of African sun on a white backside. They’re no longer painful, but have completely blistered. It’s pretty disgusting.

That’s some stories for now – I have more and will write them soon!

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