Fun in Kisumu: Kisumu

Apr 10, 2017

Today we left at 6:15am to catch the bus at 7:30am. The bus was late for some reason, so we didn’t leave until 8:15am.

Here’s the bus we took – called “EasyCoach”. It’s similar to Greyhound but the seats are wider and there’s more leg room. We had to go through security check to get on the bus. Security check points are everywhere – pretty much anywhere that is an entrance to some place, there will be security check. There is always one men and one women, doing the check for the same sex. I made the mistake of going toward the male security guard and he re-directed me to the women guard.

My bus ticket

The whole bus trip was about 8 hours. We arrived Maseno around 4:30pm. The view along the way was beautiful. We passed a national park on the way, and there were many baboons that sneaked out of the park, so you just see them running around the road. There were 3 different stops along the way where we took 15 minute washroom breaks. At all of these stops, you have to pay to use the washroom (usually 5~10 shillings). There's someone at the entrance of the washroom, you pay them and they'll give you some folded toilet paper. Inside the washroom, there are buckets of water with pitchers. You grab a pitcher full of water with you, and basically pour it on the floor in your stall to clean before you use it. There is no flush, similar to an outdoor porter potty.

William got this at one of the stops. It was the driest muffin I've ever had. lol!

Sorry for the unsightly picture

There were a lot of animals on the way

Interior of bus

Shops on the street selling animal fur

Beautiful Scenery

Some more views along the way

William’s dad came to pick us up at Maseno gas station. The house is beautiful and very big. They have a huge farm in the back where they plant bananas, veggies, mangos, corn and sweet potatoes. They showed me around the house and took me to my room. It’s a huge room with a big bed. I am lucky to be staying at such a nice place!

Back of the house - you can see a water tank on left, and a farm on upper right.

Side of house - The chicken and rooster are let out in the morning, and goes back inside the house at night. They do this by themselves! They know where home is.

The handsome rooster outside of the dog canal... these are two huge dogs.

These are corns. They are stagger planted (some are planted a lot later than the other ones, so you can harvest some while others are growing)

More plants - I think these are green collards.

Banana Trees - I never knew bananas had this purple thing on the bottom

They use this to cook some stuff! It looks like whatever is cooked here will taste delicious.

After the tour, it's finally time to start working!

We first looked at the water farming project. The prototype is already up, but we needed to add a water-sealing rubber cap in order to have enough suction to pump water. William had ordered this cap on Amazon and delivered to my place, so I can bring it with me from the US to Kenya. We screwed it on tight, and it worked. :)

Here is the prototype

Screwing on the black rubber cap

It's ready now

Putting it back in

It is up and running - the water gets sucked in and recycles through the fish tank. We are ready to put seeds in!

Next, it's time to look at the bunk bed project. Here is what we have in the shop: long table on top of two saw horse, a wood planar, a circular saw, clamps, wood glue, and some measuring tools. The wood planar wasn't running (it would start but the blade wasn't moving). We try to loosen the belt to see if that was the problem, but in the end it was still not running. William decided he will call someone to take a look at it.