Daughter of the Island

OK everybody's been asking about the mound. It is gone, FINALLY. I, all by myself, knocked down the mound after dooming the visible bugs. It wasn't as fun as a pinata unfortunately, but luckily bugs didn't explode out of the mound and come after me for revenge. Then, I sprayed a type of pesticide recommended by the Agro-Vet all around the corner/edges of my house. This was on Wednesday and there has been no attempts at rebuilding the mound. EUREKA! I just hope I don't get cancer or something from the pesticide.

It was as big as a basketball. gross.


Last weekend I went to Rusinga Island, which is one of the islands on Lake Victoria where my friend Denae lives. We took a motorboat to Mbita, a small town right before getting to the island. There is a "causeway" that connects the island to the mainland, but it's really just a bumpy dirt road with large rocks in it. We took a taxi to her house on the island with a taxi driver named Justice, who was quite the character.

The island was nice although there were even more bugs than at my house. And, there are scorpions to worry about, and Denae has a bat living with her that she hasn't been able to get rid of. Granger, my bat, was only in my house the first night and now hangs out in the abandoned building next door. We hung out with another American volunteer who is with a different organization and wandered around the island. We wanted to go swimming in the lake but Sunday was overcast and we were afraid of being mauled by hippos. instead we just walked along a "beach" (not really like the beaches we're used to in the States) and waded in the water. So, we're pretty sure we have shisto now. For those of you who don't know, Shisto (Bilharzia) is caused by a parasite that lives on snails along the shores of lakes such as Lake Victoria. It enters through the skin and then worms grow in your liver I think. One of our medical officers told us no one who has ever lived near Lake Victoria has ever not gotten Shisto, so we've accepted that we'll get it. We get tested for it every so often and there's medicine.

Something new to me was having to put a sieve under Denae's water supply to strain out mosquito larvae. yeah, they look just like mosquitos but without the wings and they just wiggle around in the water while they are maturing. eww.

On my way back from the island on Monday I took a taxi/car, which they stuff like matatus from Homa Bay to Oyugis. They fit 4 people in the front, 4 in the back seat and usually 3 or 4 in the "boot" (hatchback). It's not super fun, but sometimes it's the only option. I was squished in the back seat with someone else's small child on my lap, and everybody was sweating and stuck to each other. The car broke down on the side of a small mountain because we ran out of gas. The driver just stopped the car and got on a piki piki and rode away. We waited for an hour and he finally came back with gas. I knew it was only a matter of time before something like that happened, luckily I wasn't in a hurry.

Tuesday was declared a national holiday because Kenya is doing their census. I was counted before some of my kenyan counterparts, which is pretty funny. They also asked questions about water supply, latrines, livestock, etc.


I forgot to write it, but my organization gave me a Luo name: Nyachula, it means "daughter of the island." I love my organization. Right now we have one of our donors from Belgium visiting, which is cool because I've been riding with them in their hired car to all the remote locations. I haven't been able to visit many groups up until now because I'm not allowed to ride a pikipiki and we don't have enough money to pay for taxis. I went to a community clinic on Friday, which the donor might expand, and am really excited to work with them. They have an HIV/AIDS support group and a youth group which does skits and events to raise awareness about health issues. They do home-based care and we visited 4 patients, all of which are widows living with AIDS. One of the ladies has problems with her legs and can barely walk yet she still somehow makes it out of her house with a stool and sits in her shamba (farm area) and cultivates her land. She refuses to give up or sit around waiting for handouts. I was impressed.They also have an alternative nutrition program to train PLWAs how to cook nutritious foods with locally available foods. They cooked some for us so we could try it. They made chapati and little donut-type things out of soya and made one juice with sweet potato leaves and the other with avocado. When I fist heard avocado juice I was hesitant, but it was great! They mix avocado with lemon juice and water and a little sugar, it tasted like a smoothie!

Today I went to see two more widows that will have houses built for them because their houses are leaky. Afterwards we went to a small volcanic lake called Lake Simbi near Lake Victoria. It smelled like hard-boiled eggs but was pretty. There were a few flamingoes hanging out there too. According to a folk tale some men were drinking and partying and being rude to their wives so two of the wives decided to leave their homes and as they were leaving it started pouring rain and all the houses that were partying sunk into the ground and the lake formed over it.