Rusinga Island - Matt

We've been on Rusinga Island for a little over two weeks now and we've had a chance get a lay o' the land so to speak. We've hiked all through the hills including a bloody bush whack to the top of the island. We've taken a weekend trip to camp in Ruma National Park. We've been teaching at a primary and a secondary school. We've ridden the ring road all around the island. And most importantly we've been living, eating and drinking the life of Rusinga.

Rusinga cell towers looking north

Given all of these recent experiences I would like to take this opportunity to depict in detail the rural African life that sits quietly on the island Rusinga. The island is covered with small tin roofed houses that pepper the landscape in varying densities. In between the houses are either shrubs and short trees in the steeper, rockier areas or fields newly plowed and waiting for the rains. Some of the denser sets of buildings have names like Wanyama and M'tare. These towns consist of a small convenience store, a spare motorcycle parts store a hair salon and maybe one other unique thing. M'tare has fish processing plant since it's right on the Lake and I use the term plant loosely here.

We live with Odula family on the northwestern slopes of the island just outside the small set of buildings called Kaswanga. These slopes give way to a shoreline with an empty horizon filled with the flat blue green expanse of Lake Victoria. The Odulas seem to be on the higher end of the economic strata of Rusinga. Michael Odula sr., our host father, is a well educated, well traveled and well thought of member of the community as far as we can tell. He has been involved with education on the island for the past 40 years. For much of that time he was a principle at the largest secondary school (high school) on the island. He is one of the UN Environmental Project's 500, which he is eager to remind of us frequently and is clearly one of his most prized accomplishments. He is on a "council of elders" that is involved with the entire lake region of Kenya. He's built a primary school on land he owns just above his property with his retirement fund, another fact he is eager to remind us about. We help out at this school two days a week. The school is a cement foundation with tin sheeting wired to wooden poles made from the local trees. It is basic but it takes in a lot of students. He has clearly done a lot in his life for which he is widely respected.

The Primary School Where We Work

In old age his passion for education, that he's had through his whole life, remains strong, however his energy and cognitive strength to accompany that passion must have faded somewhat. We have heard many of his stories multiple times. He seems to be hard at hearing which leads to some interruptions and loud repeations. And sometimes, when we're eating dinner or just sitting quietly with him, he'll murmur '...mmmMM. Yes. That is how it is.' or something to that effect. As though he is responding to the last statement made in a conversation that ended minutes ago. This by no means that what he has to say is meaningless. Far from it in fact. His experiences lend very credible and effective insight to Sam and I discoveries about Africa. 

For instance he has one anecdote Sam and I have heard a couple times about one of the conferences he's attended, maybe it was in Mexico, where the presenters show clips from, and describe the biggest slum in Nairobi, and maybe in Africa I can't remember. They used it as an example of poverty and how it hasn't got any better in Africa. At the end of the presentation Mr. Odula got up and said that they have just showed the most impoverished part of the city and that if they were to show the rest of the city or even the country it looks nothing like that. So why have they shown it? To this they did not say much apparently but invited Mr. Odula to meet with them after the presentation. They went up to their hotel room and had a couple drink and told him that if they were to show the Africa that he described they would loose funding. 

This is a huge part of the problem in our misconception of the way the world is improving. People want their organization to continue to be effective and profitable so they have to present the most heart wrenching data/images/stories possible to gain financial backing. 

It is difficult for me to say what is better. To have the misconception that much of the world is impoverished and thus acquire the financial ability to at least try and correct the problem, or, to spread the more objective truth about the matter and lose much of the ability to fix the many problems that are still present within impoverished communities. What I can say is that Odula long ago stopped attending these conferences. He can't understand how people can pay for him to fly business class around the world to stay in hotels that presidents stay in and are given stipends while there all to talk about how to fix poverty, and for that matter neither can I. What he has described to me would cost at the very lowest end 2000$ per person for a conference of at least 100 people, then add in who knows how much for speakers' fees and the cost of putting one of those one is huge. Looking around Rusinga I can see how just the cost of Odula's trip to that one conference could change the lives of many here on the island and Odula sees that as well.

The Odula household. Kitchen on the left. Living room on the right.

Though his accomplishments are somewhat unique to the island his position is not. The eldery in Kenya retains a respect and reverence, regardless of merit, that is seldom given to those in the US as far as I can tell. I would attribute this to the strong family and community bonds that permeate and sustain the culture on the island. Every single day we have neighbors walking onto the Odula property, essentially in between our bedroom and the kitchen and the living room since these are all separate buildings. Maybe they're neighbors asking for a cup of maize flour, maybe kids on their way to school, maybe it's just a cousin walking to town and decided to stop in to say 'hi'. Whatever it is they are all welcomed.

Since there is a lack of traditional western stimulants (TV, internet, books, model trains, etc.) due to lack of electricity and access and since the weather is so hot, many people spend their free time outside in the shade of their houses and talk. Talking is what humans used to do for fun before Thomas Edison and Alan Turing came along and ruined everything. This eagerness for human interaction seems to encourage keeping up relations with your local community.

Another reason for strong local ties could be this; Jane Odula, our host mother, told us yesterday that she has six sisters and five brothers and uncountable nieces and nephews, most of whom live on the island, just after she got back from a funeral for one of her cousins. On an island with maybe 5,000 people on it is not hard to see how families of that size would enforce and require strong community ties. Just the fact that we were able to find the people we were supposed to stay with just knowing their first names AND thinking they were white shows an interconnectivity that I could never imagine existing in the town of 8,000 from which I come in Idaho.

Think about it. How many unannounced visitors come by your house a day? What would happen if you went to a small town in America or Europe and started telling strangers that you were supposed to be living with Pete and Diane and they live somewhere in town. I don't see the reaction being more than a half hearted 'good luck'.

The Odula living room. With tea and chapati laid out.

A day in the life of the Odula family looks like this. Family's up with the sun. Young Michael and Gloria off to school which starts a 6am and goes till 5pm. Jane makes tea and breakfast for Michael sr., Sam and I. Breakfast is usually just a bread product. Chapati (fried flat bread), white bread and butter, fried chunks of dough, etc. Michael Martin (that's the middle Michael who graduated from secondary school last year and is waiting on his A levels results before going to college.) usually eats later in the morning if at all. After breakfast Michael sr. heads off to the secondary school he is the principle at and where we work. Sometimes he'll spend his morning checking in on the primary school he built he's involved with near their house. After he has left, Michael Martin cleans up the house, does the breakfast dishes, makes sure the solar panels are charging the batteries and takes the donkeys down to the lake to water then and fill up large jugs of water which the donkeys haul back up to the house to fill a large tin basin which stores all the water used for anything that isn't drinking. Drinking water is collected in a large black tank behind the house from rain gutters along the house and then treated with some chemical that tastes like bleach. After chores are completed then Jane and Michael Martin relax through the heat of the day or take care of any social matters they have.

The Odula kitchen where Jane spends most of her time. Notice the chicken.

In the evening Michael sr. will return at various times depending on the day’s work load. He has the time to relax and maybe shower, which is down by filling a bucket with water from the afore mentioned basin and taking it to a ring of tin sheeting around a pad of gravel. From there you strip down and pour water on your head, soap up, and pour more water on your head. Michael Martin will take the cows down to water by the lake. The kids come home from school and Gloria will start doing her homework, little Michael just hangs around and Michael sr. snoozes in his designated chair. Dinner happens sometime between eight and nine pm. We come in a little before and sit with the kids and Michael sr.. Little Michael and Michael Martin bring in the food and set it out in the living room. After washing our hands and a quick prayer it is time to eat. Sam and I are always allowed to serve ourselves first. Michael sr. is next. Then Little Michael and finally Gloria is forced to put her homework away and eat. About one out of two days we have Omena (the little sardines). About two out of every three days we have a stewed cabbage. And about three out of four days we have Ugali (essentially corn flour and hot water). The meal seems entirely dependent on what Jane can find at the market. She has been looking for Nile Perch since we arrived since it is the classic fish of Lake Victoria but has been unable to find it. Apparently, it is all shipped out to places like Nairobi and Mombasa now. After dinner everyone kinda sits around in a food comatose, Michael sr. will sit with his shirt unbuttoned leaving his huge hairless belly free to expand as necessary, until about 10 o'clock and then it's time for bed.

Ugali and fried omena (sardines)

Weekends change in that there is more food ate and they go to church on Saturday for four or five hours. And other than the essential chores they just relax and eat.

Life he has been a relaxing and eye opening oasis from the stresses and tunnel vision of the road and travel. It has given Sam and I the time we need to prepare for the second half of our journey. Our Sudanese visa has been applied for and should be on its way to Nairobi soon. We've mapped our itinerary for travel north through Ethiopia and are already feeling the calling for the road and the next leg of our journey. But it will be hard to start up from the peace, quite and relaxation that has characterized our time here.