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Today is Eid al-Fitr, a holiday marking the end of Ramadan. Traveling west this morning, men dressed in long white robes (thobes) are lined up on mats praying outside mosques. We stop along the road past Mumias to bird an area that just a year ago was a good natural habitat. Now it’s covered with maize. We do manage to see some special birds to this area, but habitat is disappearing quickly as pressures mount from the growing population.
For the past week a refrain from the song by Toto runs through my head: “I bless the rains down in Africa.” We’ve been lucky with the weather. Although streams are higher than normal, hard to find certain species, last week it rained all day for three days, very unusual for Western Kenya.
The uneven power surges have caused the charger for Russ’ Mac to die again. So no additional pictures can be posted from his cameras. We’ve got to plan for this on future trips.
At Busia, on the border of Uganda, we turn south before a picnic lunch on the grounds of a church. There is maize planted everywhere. We just never lose sight of it. Along the banks of a river are Rock Pratincoles; locals are harvesting mounds and mounds of sand from the river (The Nzoia Sand Harvesting). Women carry pans of sand on their heads, dump it onto growing mounds, men shovel it into trucks. What is this doing to the river? What happens when there is no more sand?
Just southwest of here, towards Lake Victoria, Obama’s grandmother lives; we pass the road to her place. On to Kisumu, the third largest city in Kenya, on the shore of Lake Victoria, the world’s second largest lake after Lake Superior. We are actually on Winam Gulf, a finger off the northeast corner of the lake. Boundaries of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania go through the lake with Kenya getting the smallest share. We have dropped 1000 feet in elevation; it’s much warmer and not as damp as in Kakamega.
Late afternoon we head to Hippo Point, along marshland and a beach presumably. It being a Friday, people are everywhere. Trash is everywhere. Standing water is polluted with garbage. Somehow we find some birds that manage to survive in such a congested, poor area; how do people manage to survive in areas like this? What a contrast to the secluded world we left this morning.
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Tracey So sorry about Russ's charger. Hope his camera doesn't get too full to take pictures!! Try and enjoy. If you go into Uganda, you will see how they have terraced the landscape to farm just about everywhere. Thanks for the updates.