"People and Landscape Around Oyugis" Oyugis Travelogue by glabah

While Oyugis is a difficult place to live due to the rather extensive number of losses due to the AIDS/HIV epidemic, the scenery surrounding the community is very attractive.

Look closely in the above photo, at the center. You will see a small sliver of Lake Victoria.

Blowing Bubbles for the Kids

Kids are kids, and our volunteer service time in Oyugis spent some time with the local children.

Generally, people in Africa do not like having their picture taken. Therefore be very careful of when, where, and of who you take your photos.

Games with the older Children

During part of our time there, the older "children" broke into two teams and did a competitive chanting, dancing and singing contest. The musical talents of the local population is definitely considerable!

Many of these "children" in this age group have become heads of households due to the death of their parents due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

House and Family Plot of Land uphill from town

Rain storm coming!

Hardened mud, dried cow dung, and an assortment of other materials are mixed to create this adobe-like material that is part of a traditional home. The roof material is a newer innovation.

Plots of land are handed down from one generation to the next, and the ties to the land run deep. Usually, if you ask people where they are from, they will tell you what city their family has its ancestral land, even if they themselves have never visited that location.

Oh Wow. It's an iPod.

While the daily struggles of life are evident with the children and young adults that we visited here, they were for the most part very good to work with.

The fact that there was actually a fairly extensive fight over crayons shows just how desperate the circumstances are for some of these families.

Lunch is Served

Everyone was fairly orderly when it came to lining up for lunch and mid-morning snack.

Washing the Dishes, water from rain gutter

Everyone was also fairly cooperative about washing the dishes as well.

Water for washing the dishes came from a plastic tank (seen in the background of this photo) that was filled from the rainwater falling on the roof of the school were we were working.

Unfortunately, the gutter system feeding the tank fell appart during our stay there, and afterward the tank ran dry. In order to get water, it had to be carried from quite a distance a way, by hand, on the shoulders of several devoted locals.

Visiting a young family in their home

Home Visits:

We were able to visit some of the local families in their homes. In many cases, both the mother and father of the family had died due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The older children, sometimes assisted by their grandparents, raise the younger ones. Attempting to raise the family, earn money by selling surplus crops from the land they have inherited through their family, and otherwise survive (it can take quite a lot of effort just to get water to drink) leaves very limited educational opportunities for the older children that wind up having all these responsibilites.

When we did our home visits, we asked if there was anything that we could pray about for them. In most cases the prayer requests had to do with seeking educational opportunities within all the other struggles of life.

The girl seated here by the door sells the surplus corn from the crops her family has, and this is pretty much the only source of income their family has. The cow in the background is seeking shelter from a rain storm.

It is possible to learn a lot about the state of a people by visiting some of the family homes. It is also interesting to see some of the local culture. For example, we got to see a traditional food storage house unlike anything we have where I live.