Day 11 - Lake Victoria

Today we visited a traditional village at Lake Victoria. We started our tour with a boat trip, as the lake is usually calmest in the morning. Our group was divided over 5 or 6 boats. I was clearly in the best boat as compared to the others we had to scoop the least amount of water from the boat and we were going fastest. When I mentioned this, it seemed to encourage a small competition with one of the other boats, but although we clearly were fastest and the others had given up, the guys in our boat continued to row like crazy and given the temperature I felt sorry for them and told them to relax a number of times. It wasn’t however till I said ‘hakuna matata’ and ‘pole pole’ till they understood and relaxed.

We went to see a traditional fish pod on the shore of the lake and after we returned to the village, while the man were singing traditional songs, creating the rhythm by alternately scraping and banging the boat with their oars while rowing. We learned that the men go out on the lake to fish during the night and when they arrive in the village in the morning, their women buy the fish from them, the women then clean the fish and sell it on the market. This system of wife buying fish from her husband may seem weird to us, but the men assured us that it was a good system. This way, they (the men) would get enough money to drink and smoke before going to sleep in the afternoon, without wasting all of it. It is said that admitting to a problem is half the solution, however here the men clearly noticed the pattern, but most of them did not seem to recognize it as a problem, neither were they intent on changing it.

In the village we saw the women processing the fish, we saw the ‘red light’ district (which is a lot less obvious without the red lights), we saw the pub, bakery, cinema and all other things that make a village a village. And again we were followed by many children. One girl grabbed my hand and just would not let go and would even put my arm around her shoulder, it was such a sad vibe coming off her. We ended our tour in the school just outside the village (www.zariki.org). This time there were kids in class and we were told that they did not just come from the village, but also from miles around. Since going to school is compulsory for kids in both Kenya and Tanzania I was wondering how it was possible that we would see many kids not in school, not just today, but during the entire trip. The head teacher told us, that there were not many teachers, in part because they would not get paid, or get paid very little. Therefore in this school classes were in two sessions: one group of kids would go to school from 8 am till noon, the others from 12.30 pm to 4.30 pm. When I asked the teacher how he survived if he did not get paid, he said that he would go to sleep around 17.00 and then join the men on the lake during the night. And although I know that most of the men that we saw sleeping during the day were probably not all teachers working two jobs, I like to think that at least for some of them the prejudice I noticed sometimes in our group was not justified. After the kids sang a few songs for us, we continued to the market to buy some tilapia for our diner. Seeing the market I think it is a good thing that when it comes to food my philosophy is that it should taste good and not make me ill, if those two criteria are met, I don’t care where it has been or how many flies have been on it.

Today the timing of my shower was a bit better in the sense that I took one after our trip to the scorching village. What I had not realized is that the water for the showers is being heated by a fire that would only be lit in the morning and evening. So the water was not as warm as I would have liked it to be, but please try to picture this: taking a shower, massaging some shampoo in your hair, looking out of the square hole in the wall that doubles as a window while doing it and seeing the Serengeti. I’m telling you people, even if you don’t see half of it because you are not wearing your glasses, it does not get much cooler than that!

For the remainder of the afternoon we could relax a bit, read a book or walk around the campsite which was fenced off from the Serengeti by thorny branches or even walk outside the campsite (the fence was not up to par everywhere), where the baboons were trying to get some food from you and the locals were herding their cattle and goats or hunting (illegally). Then, about an hour before sunset, it started to rain … a lot! Luckily there was a bar / restaurant area where we could take shelter, although we were strategically placed by the staff in the spot where we were least likely to get wet. The rain had turned some parts of the campsite into mud, although the area around our tents was okay. Also the rain had not stopped our cook from preparing our nice tilapia diner. It had taken him all afternoon, with the help from a local cook and it tasted delicious (check one) and nobody got sick from it (check two).