Lake Victoria

One of the perks of being in Kenya this summer, besides working on some really interesting research project, is the fact that Kenya has a very interesting and diverse wildlife. Last weekend, I set out with five friends to see some of the local wildlife in Lake Victoria. Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa, the largest tropical lake in the world, and the second largest fresh water lake in the world in terms of surface area. The largest freshwater lake in the world is Lake Superior near Minnesota. I think that growing up near Lake Superior gave me a love for lakes that has made living near Lake Victoria something that I have looked forward too. Lake Victoria borders the countries of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. All this to say that it is a very big lake! It is also the source of the longest branch of the Nile River, the White Nile. (For those interested there are two branches to the Nile: White and Blue.) Like the rest of Kenya the lake near where I live is home to many animals and birds that I have never seen in the wild before.

The six of us set out early Sunday morning for an area of town called the “car wash”. This area is the only public access to the lake within Kisumu town. It is called the “car wash” since everyone seems to bring their car, bus, or other form of transportation to the shores of the lake to be washed. The vehicles are driven so that their wheels are partly covered in water and then it will be washed using the water of the lake. There is also a long row of restaurants along the shore that serve only fried fish from the lake. The only fish I have seen to eat here is the Tilapia. Usually when the fishermen bring the fish into sell, the restaurant will immediately make slit in the sides and then fry it, when you go to order your fish you sometimes get to pick your size and then it is refried or stewed depending on your taste.

We had hired a guide and a motor boat for the morning to take us out onto the lake to see the hippopotamus, birds, and the fishing culture of the lake. Our guide was wonderful at finding all the birds along the shore, explaining the lives of hippos, and answering our questions about the people who live off fishing in the lake. The hippos were fun to see though not as impressive as I thought they might be, which is maybe just as well as hippos can be fairly dangerous animals when angered. The hippos ended up being a very small piece of our morning and the birds were far more numerous and diverse. We went to an area of the lake that is know for its birds, we saw a colony of egrets, cormorants, fisher birds, weaver birds, lots of small birds I can’t remember the name of but that were brightly colored, and our guide’s favorite a bird that is like a secretary bird but is not a secretary bird (there are non on the lake). The guide kept telling us that this bird was like a secretary bird but was not one, so much so that now I can’t remember the proper name for it. I have posted pictures of the hippos and birds on my photo website.

I found the fishing boats to be the most interesting. It was still early enough that some fishermen were pulling in their nets. The common fishing boats in this area for small fisherman are long wooden boats that are moved around by long poles and sometimes oars. The lake isn’t very deep so it is easy to push off from the bottom. In the bigger fishing boats a team of pullers all with polls pulls the net together, big nets can hold hundreds of pounds of fish. The small boats and nets can be pulled by a single individual and these made for the most beautiful pictures in my opinion. The reality here on the shores of Lake Victoria, like much of the rest of the world, is that it is no longer profitable to be a small fishing operation. The larger companies that run motorized boats in the middle of the lake are the ones that truly make their millions on the richness of this lake. Fishing here, like small family farmers in the US or Europe, is becoming something that no longer allows for an individual family to live off of.

I will probably go back out on the lake at least once more before I leave; it is supposed to be a magnificent view at sunset. In the mean time I will continue to eat Tilapia on the shores of this enormous lake.

This weekend a group of four of us is planning to head to the area near Homa Bay, which is south and east of Kisumu. It is suppose to be a nice area and most importantly it is near Ruma National Park, where we are going to hopefully see the roan antelope which are not found anywhere else in the world.