WESTERN IDYLL Catrina Stewart heads to the islands on Lake Victoria in search of a peaceful retreat and a whopper of a Nile Perch. PHOTOGRAPHS BRIAN SIAMBI
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ho killed Tom Mboya? The riddle over the murder of one of Kenya’s most celebrated politicians in 1969 remains unsolved to this day. Nahashon Isaac Njenga Njoroge, the man who pulled the trigger, said as he was arrested, “Why pick on me? Why not the big man? We did what we were told.” He never did reveal the identity of the “big man,” and was hanged in haste, most probably to prevent him from talking. Nearly half a century after his murder, Mboya’s name still resonates hugely in Western Kenya. Schools are named after him, and his mausoleum, moulded in the shape of the bullet that killed him, on a windswept patch of Rusinga Island still attracts a steady stream of visitors keen to pay their respects. Leafing through the Mboya family’s press cuttings about his life, I wonder what might have been. Would Mboya, as a pan-Africanist who claimed to look beyond tribe, have helped Kenya overcome its tribal divisions had he succeeded the ailing Jomo Kenyatta, as many expected? Or would he have succumbed to the trappings and challenges of power? Paul Ndiege, Mboya’s much younger halfbrother, who takes drop-in visitors on a tour of the politician’s final resting place, naturally believes that his sibling could have been Kenya’s saviour, perhaps even the continent’s. “Tom was beyond tribal or ethnic boundaries. He ensured Kenya was one vision, one people,” he says. “If he’d lived, Africa as a whole would have taken a very different course.” We take our leave, deep in thought.
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Ndiege supplies no answers to the identity of those who sought his brother’s demise, but he talks eloquently about the decades of disappointment and marginalisation of Kenya’s Western peoples. We drive back along the rutted track that loops around Rusinga, and past the smart Rusinga Island Lodge, where a former owner with a background in shipping conceived a plan to restore broken-down steamers and fit them out for luxury cruises. It might have transformed this part of Lake Victoria into a more popular destination for holidaymakers and helped bring prosperity to the West. But he died an untimely death, and his plans died with him. The largest lake in Africa and source of the Nile, Lake Victoria spans 27,000 square miles. It was named by John Hanning Speke, the British explorer who first reached its shores in 1858. It is a lifeline for those who live here, with fishing, although depleted, still a main source of income for lakeshore communities. Yet, for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, it’s not on many of my friends’ “mustsee” lists. Tourism in this region is still nascent, as evidenced by just a smattering of decent accommodation. My stomach knots with excitement as we scramble onto a launch in Mbita, a twoshack kind of place that has morphed over a relatively short time into a sprawling town and launching pad for the islands. We’re headed for Mfangano Island Lodge, a retreat on the attractive island of the same name. Unlike Rusinga, it has not been denuded of its trees, nor is it troubled by bilharzia, the parasite that thrives in stagnant water around Lake Victoria’s shores, and burrows through human skin.
We break the golden rule: do not cross the lake in the afternoon, when the wind starts to whip up. As our speedboat crashes over the swollen waves, I clutch my pregnant belly and castigate myself for not taking the weather into consideration. Soon, though, we are puttering around the edges of rugged, forested Mfangano, and we slowly motor into the camp, where a handful of attractive thatched cottages are clustered around a small bay. This serene resort is hardly what I expect to find in Lake Victoria. We are soon swaying in hanging swings, sundowner in hand, on the pier stretching into the lake. Dinner takes place by candlelight in the garden, where we’re treated to a feast of twinkling lights on the horizon, those of the hundreds of fishermen using lamps to attract the tiny omena, a silvery sardine-like fish. For the most part, those who stay at Mfangano - part of the Governor’s Collection - have traditionally been the safari goers, looking for a place to relax after a trip to the Maasai Mara. But perhaps things are changing in this part of Kenya, with events such as the annual Rusinga Island Festival, or Mfangano’s recent cycling race around the island, attracting a younger, more active crowd.
