Once again it’s the weekend, which I’m extremely grateful for. This week, as challenging as it’s been, has absolutely flown by. Thankfully nobody was hungover after the drinks we had last night, and I for one, was ready for a nice relaxing day at Lake Simbi.

Having not been there before, I was not sure what to expect. From some of the descriptions I expected it to be quite a barren area with a few animal carcasses, whilst internally I was hoping for something similar to Rusinga Island. There was even a mention of flamingos sometimes flying there! I really was not sure what to expect. Once again, we all piled on to the big Rongo University bus and made our way to the lake. I think everyone was delighted that Isabelle had once again brought along Zerah and Amaya and, Hafsah in particular, was enthralled that Wendy was once again joined by little Geordie. I feel like today was going to be a really nice break from the hard work that we had all put in during the week.

The lake was a bit further on from Homa Bay, it took about an hour and a half in total. Whilst we were driving through Homa Bay, we noticed a lot of people gathering near the road. We were told that it was because of a political rally lead by (insert name here), the leader of the (insert name here) party, opposition of the current government. Halima was particularly excited for this, as they are the party that she supports. She had her head out of the window, waving her orange scarf (which I assume has something to do with the party’s colours) and shouting out a little chant in Swahili.

When we finally arrive, I step off the bus to see the lake. It’s big, but nowhere near the size of Lake Victoria. Mac tells us that its diameter is roughly 2km. It’s extremely hot and there is little shade as there weather there recently had been extremely dry, so there were not many leaves on the trees and the grass was a shade of light brown, rather than the vibrant green that Peter told us he experienced a few years back. We then gathered around a local man called James, who told us a story about how the lake was originally a village and was cursed by a woman who was treated poorly when she visited in a time of need. Mac kindly translated it from Luo to English so that we could understand it. Personally, I don’t believe the story but it was still interesting to experience the local folklore that surrounds the area.

After listening to the story, which lasted about 20 minutes, a few of us wondered down to the shore to get a closer look at the lake. Aron took my phone to film some of the activity around the lake as he planned to create a video based around Lake Simbi and the story that we were told. There was a lady collecting salt by the shore, apparently, it’s for feeding animals and seasoning vegetables. Mac collected some water in a bottle and held it up. It had a green tint to it which was fascinating! I then headed back towards the bus as I was getting a bit too hot and didn’t want to burn again. We then had lunch, I wasn’t feeling too hungry so I didn’t eat. It was then time to head back to the university.

After dinner we got a few beers – we intended to fill the crate that The Treat House normally gives us, but unfortunately we were two drinks short! We didn’t have a pub quiz this evening, but instead we all got our saved playlists up on our phones and everyone tried to guess the song that we were playing!

Tomorrow we are having a proper relaxing day, the girls are getting their hair done so I expect us lads will spend the day at the Treat House!

Goodnight!

Sam 🙂