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KENDU BAY |
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KENDU BAY 's local fame comes from the curiosity of Simbi Lake ,
about 4km (45 minutes' walk) west of the village: head out of the
village on the Homa Bay road and pass the left turn to Oyugis/Kisii.
Just over 2km further on, over the river bridge, turn right down the
path and walk for another fifteen minutes.
The lake, and the nearby Ondago Swamp, have been adopted as feeding
grounds (in June and July) by a couple of thousand flamingos , refugees
from Lake Nakuru. With a steady trickle of naturalists and tourists now
coming to Kendu Bay to bird-watch, the villagers are, inevitably, keen
for a slice of the action. Among the suggestions that have been made are
that the Homa Bay County Council should fence off Simbi Lake, impose
admission charges, and make provision for local traders to set up stalls,
but as yet they have not done so, and the lake remains a tranquil beauty
spot where the only commerce is the odd local resident selling sugar
cane.
Even without the flamingos, the lake is unquestionably weird: several
bright green but changeable acres of opaque water sunk 20-30m below the
surrounding land and only a few kilometres from Lake Victoria itself. It
has no apparent source and its origins are somewhat mysterious. It looks
like a huge meteorite crater with a footpath around the rim.
The story goes that an old wandering woman was refused hospitality one
rainy night at the village that once occupied the site of the lake. A
big beer party was going on and she was ignored. Only one woman would
allow her to warm herself and the old woman insisted she and her family
leave the village with her. The young woman tried to persuade her
husband to come with them, fearing the old lady's revenge for her
ill-treatment, but in vain. So the two women left alone. And later that
night there was a tremendous cloudburst and the rain came down so hard
that the village was swamped to become Simbi Lake. Further variations on
the story (there are many) improve on the theme of drunkenness and
debauchery to give a Sodom and Gomorrah ring to the tale. Other lakes in
Kenya have similar tales of origin.
The little lake's shores are almost devoid of vegetation. Nobody goes
out on it in boats and it doesn't look as if they fish there either.
It's usually described with the catch-all term "volcanic" and is
apparently extraordinarily deep. According to one local belief, visitors
should throw money in to avoid bad luck. Whatever the natural
explanation, it seems plausible that the area was inhabited when the
lake was formed, the disaster accounting for the legends. Similar,
though smaller, lakes can be seen east of Kendu Bay along the road to
Kisumu.
If you're heading on to Homa Bay, you might like to see the Oriang
Pottery Centre in the village of the same name, 2km past the Simbi Lake
turning. It's a UNDEP-funded programme, relying on clay from the local
river bed.
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