Walking Amongst Poverty and Despair on Lake Victoria’s Islands


This is Part 4 of a 7 part series on my experiences in Tanzania while volunteering with a U.S. based NGO to build a library and community resource center in the village of Nyegina, near the shores of Lake Victoria. To read other parts of this series, please use the term “Tanzania” in this site’s search function.

Father Leo arrived in his pick-up truck just as the long boat was motoring up to shore outside of Epheta’s beach side gate. He hired the boat to take me and the other volunteers to two islands about an hour south and west across Lake Victoria. He agreed to go with us not only to serve as our guide but to also visit the people in the islands’ small villages and outposts, for they were a part of his parish. He also wanted us to see and understand the depths of poverty in which this portion of the world lives.

The boat was ancient. Peeling and splintered wooden planks spanned its 40 foot length. The name Shaara Invest was painted white against the faded blue background. It had a rather smallish 40 horsepower engine given the size of the boat and the growing swells and waves out on the lake. We were hesitant at first to get on since there were no life preservers. That and the slowly rising water sloshing around on the floor of the boat gave us great pause. With blind faith and some effort, we reluctantly climbed aboard. We have a priest with us. What could possible go wrong?



While underway we sat on split logs loosely fitted between the gunwales. Thankfully, there was a wooden covering over the sitting area that kept the equatorial sun and heat off of us. The boat's wooden ribbing was just high enough off of the plank floor so that our feet had a place to keep from getting wet due to the rising water. Two men were at the front of the boat. They were bare footed and wore blue jeans with the pant cuffs rolled up to their knees. They took turns bailing the water using old cut up plastic motor oil containers, one as the scoop and the other as a bucket to throw the water overboard. We all turned to face each other with a WTF-are-we-doing look in our eyes as we occasionally helped with the bailing for the duration of the trip. 










We passed many fishing boats. The men in the boats would yell to our tiller man, asking who we had on board.

"Father Leo," he would yell across the water.

"Hello Father Leo!" they would yell back while frantically waving their hands.

This man is known everywhere. 




After an hour of this, we made our first stop at Iriga Island. Crowds of people gathered at the dock waiting for our arrival. To see white faces that were now in their midst must be a rare event. Rickety shanties made of driftwood and straw lined the shoreline. Squalor and filth was everywhere. These poor people and their living conditions were at the lowest of the low. The overall abject poverty was like a punch in the face.  It is unlikely that even National Geographic themselves have ever visited this place. Even they would blanch at the conditions. 






All of the people here are squatters, illegally living on this remote island. According to Dr. Kurt, the government wants to establish this island as a wildlife and bird sanctuary. Success is doubtful. The population of 600 people continues to grow and expand into the breeding grounds. There are no sanitary facilities. The nearest rock or bush serves that purpose. Cattle and livestock have also been illegally transported to the island causing further degradation to the environment. 





Relocating these people is a difficult option. It costs money which the government does not have. Even if they did, there is no place where they can be moved to. And no one wants them. Father Leo told us the population is rife with AIDS and other diseases. Prostitution and drug use is rampant. Besides, they would likely not survive on the mainland for fishing is their way of life. And to fish, one needs to be where the fish are. Since there are no viable or practical solutions, the government is frozen with indecision. The living conditions are ignored. These peoples' plight, the health issues they have, and the environmental consequences they are causing continue to go unaddressed and untreated. 

Rukuba Island, another hour away, was only a little better with conditions being a bit more civilized. There are primitive facilities and an unfinished church building in which Father Leo holds mass once or twice a month. Father Leo, it seems, provides hope in this part of the world where there is little of it. Here too, though, are the same AIDS, disease, drug use, and prostitution problems. A bright point was the smiles and the joyful laughs and giggles of the little kids. Many wanted to take our hands as they led us through the shantytowns.






We talked as lunch was served in a walled off room inside the unfinished church. We hoped that our work and the work of other NGOs will help get these kids the education they deserve. When these kids get older, some of them will be transported by boat to the mainland to live with relatives. They will attend school in Nyegina and will learn and study in the library we are building for them. 

Still, I couldn't help but wonder how much of a difference we and others were making. Would these kids break out of this cycle of poverty? Or would they be trapped into lives no better off than the ones their parents were raising them in? It may take generations to find out, but hopefully, the lives of these and many other children were being made better by the constant attention and assistance, direct or indirect, we and others were giving them.  

We returned to the boat on a dirt path that served as the main street through the core of this the shantytown. You could spread out your arms and nearly touch the walls of the buildings on either side. We sidestepped children lying on the path, playing in the dirt at their feet. Women were cooking simple meals over an open flame, too dangerous and too hot to do so inside their straw-walled huts. Men played billiards on a beat up, red felt pool table in a place that passed as a bar and restaurant. Voices of women were heard behind the thin walls of the huts yelling to us words that were undecipherable. Father Leo would say something in return. Perhaps it was a blessing of some sort.







The smell of fish drying on the sand or on the flat edges of large boulders permeated the air. Mixed in were the odors of dust and dirt, rotting garbage, burning or smoldering trash piles, animal dung, and human body odor. We were relieved to get back on the boat and to the fresh air of the lake breezes. 

Ugh. The wretchedness of the day was emotionally overwhelming. 

A video of this island visit is at the following link:


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