A Bridge Too Far!

Saturday afternoon was eventful.  What was supposed to be a short outing turned into another classic African adventure.  We had planned a short journey onto Rusinga Island to see a garden project associated with the Little Stars School.  Food crops are grown there to provide food for the school and any excess is sold to make money for other school needs.
The road to the garden involved a short drive across a peninsula.  Unfortunately for us this road is under construction and as such was largely impassible.  The reason for the construction however, is a good one.  The peninsula was built to join Rusinga Island to the mainland.  That was good for the people living there but not good for the fish stocks who used this waterway.  After some evaluation a decision was made to remove the causeway and build a bridge.  Money was found to start the construction but like many things in Africa this project was moving pole pole (swahili for slowly, slowly).
The bus left the impassable main road and started down a questionable by-pass.  At times the path was so narrow the branches from trees were scraping the sides of the bus and coming in the windows.   As you might predict, the further in we got, the rougher the "road" became, before sure enough the bus bottomed out and we could go no further.  Fortunately, we were close at this point and able to walk the remaining distance.
The garden itself looked great.  Leonard, the gardener, took us on a tour through rows of swiss chard (what they call spinach), kale and beans.  There were also banana and papaya trees that were bearing fruit.  The soil was dry and had been dug completely by hand.   I had visions of the garden of Eden.

An introduction to the garden project.

Ahhh, my African green beans!

Corn looks almost ready.

Banana tree

Definitely swiss chard

Kale

Leonard the gardener

Papaya tree

After a short tour we walked back to the main road where we were picked up in two groups to be escorted to a small resort for "Happy Hour".  Our driver, named Washington, drove a typical matatu van which held about 10 people at a time.  Locals will squeeze in many more and you often see people hanging off the sides.

Don't Exhale!

Our driver, Washington, stopped along the road to introduce his son.

A single lodge rents for approximately $60 US and includes meals

All of this was arranged by cell phone.  It seems that everyone in Africa has one.  Most problems can be solved quite quickly if one only knows whom to call.
All in all it was a great outing, even if the drive was not quite what we expected.  Or perhaps, it was exactly what we should have expected in this, our second week in Africa!

Kwaheri, until tomorrow!