Fun in Kisumu: Village Life

April 17, 2016

William’s dad has a friend who built an underground water tank (collecting rain water for house use). They wanted to go and visit to see how it was done, so they can also build a similar one. This friend also does a lot of agriculture and farming at his own house. So we are going there to learn his techniques.

We did about an hour of wood planing before we left.

Here are some view along the way. One interesting thing: we drove pass the equator! Basically we were driving from the southern hemisphere, pass the equator, and to the northern hemisphere. There was a landmark there but the car was moving too fast so I couldn’t take a picture. We passed through this town called “Luanda”. It’s quite busy, with lots of markets and people walking on the street.

people carry huge stuff on their heads! This woman is carrying a basket of bananas and chatting at the same time. It takes skills.

Some interesting facts I forgot to mention about Kenya:

1. People drive on the other side of street, just like Japan.
2. The electric outlet here is different. It’s a “Type G” outlet. You need to buy a convertor. I got this one about 200~300 shillings from Nakumatt.

Type G Adaptor

William's dad driving. Notice driver is on the right. Also, there is a cow on the upper right corner!

Here is the friend’s house. A bit about this friend: he teaches at Maseno University, which is the university we are building the bunk beds for!

They have a big farm with corn, papaya, avocado trees. We had lunch here. There was mixed fruits for dessert - Mangos, papaya, watermelon, melons, it was good!

The house

Papaya Tree

The banana leafs are quite soft

Taking a picture with the banana tree

This small water tank is use for collecting water for farming

Here is the underground water tank. You see the two circular concrete on the ground. The small one is the filter. The big one is the underground tank. Rainwater is collected from the gutter on the roof, leading to the filter. After water is filtered, it will flow to the big tank. This tank holds 20,000 liters of water. The above-ground tank that you see on top of the structure is where water is pumped to (from the underground tank). From here, is where gravity does its job and allow water to flow to the house, the sink faucet and shower heads etc.

In the villages like Kisumu (except in Nairobi), domestic water system isn't managed by the government. People have to find ways to collect water for themselves. For people who can afford it, they use the water tank like this, dig a well, or pump water from underground. For people who cannot afford it, William says many of them just dig a hole in the ground, and put pond-liners on it to collect water. The problem with this is that there is no lid, so anything could get in the water and contaminate it.

Pond liner is basically a plastic sheet made of PVC or EPDM material

After this, we went to another friend's house. Their house has more traditionally built structures, such as leafs for roof and mud+cow dung. They had tons of animals here! Chickens, cows, ducks, sheeps, cat, dog, they all seem to get along peacefully.

You can see the walls are made of mud + cow dung

Close-up of the wall

chicken coop

Interesting plant I saw on the way

The roof is made of leaves. This is a very traditional way of building

This is the house! There is a dog resting in front of it

Having a good meal and good chat. I didn't understand any of it but the conversation sounded very animated

This Ugali was HUGE. They said it's brown because it's a village special. They mix in corn and other ingredients. I liked it a lot!! It was more sticky and chewy and tasted great.