Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Finally the grass is complete!
Months seem to have passed since we received our first bundles of uncleaned grass for the thatching. It did not take long for the word to get around that we were paying for bundles of uncleaned grass delivered to the workshop in Kipili. Fishing boats arrived from far and wide loaded with bundles and bundles of grass that were counted and then piled up next to the lake on the mainland. It became so overwhelming that Chris had to tell the villagers that he would only accept grass on Mondays and Tuesdays so that he could have the rest of the week to take the grass over to
We soon realized that this was not ideal either. It took hours to load the grass onto the Tumbo, then transport it over to
Chris set up a team of guys on Lupita to clean the grass that had been brought to the island and one on the mainland. Every day for weeks and weeks 40 guys took bundles of the uncleaned grass and pulled them through a rough comb of nails to pull out the unsuitable sheaths. By the time a bundle had been cleaned it was half its original size. The cleaned grass was then neatly bundled and stacked.
On Saturday the last bundles of cleaned grass were loaded onto the Tumbo and brought to the
Friday, September 09, 2005
Monday, September 05, 2005
Lupita Island’s first visitors
Chris’ sister, Amelia and her husband, Erik, have just spent 10 days with us on Lupita. They are the first visitors that we have had staying with us and it was great fun to be able to show them what we have been doing here.
Bartholomew has been a regular visitor to our compound and Erik and Amelia were able to see him up close and personal. They stayed in the Managers House which is not quite finished but at least they had a roof over their heads, a flush toilet, working shower and hand basin. On two mornings Bartholomew was found sitting just next to the patio area outside the main bedroom where Erik and Amelia were sleeping. At this stage only one door had been hung leading into this bedroom so they were able to lie in bed and watch Bartholomew as he investigated our guests.
Erik and Amelia were also here when we were stranded on the
No holiday would be complete without a snake or two in your room. On the morning that they left, Erik and Amelia found a baby snake curled up in a small hole beneath the floorboards leading to the bathroom. Thank goodness Erik had looked where he was going when he went to the bathroom that morning. Boy did they need that first cup of coffee!
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Hurricane Katrina affects Lupita
On Sunday night 28th August, we had some enormous winds from the south. This was most unusual for our area which usually receives winds from the north. Our tent felt like a huge sail and pulled against its gee-ropes while our outside chairs were blown over and a huge branch was pulled off the tree over our kitchen area, landing half a meter from our tent entrance. Our animals were all terrified and we had both cats on the bed with us and the dogs under our bed.
Just after day break the askaris came to ask us to please try to help them. They had been wrestling since 2am with our boats moored in the bay. When we arrived down at the bay we found the small wooden boat that we usually use to travel between Kipili and Lupita had a fist sized hole in the prow from where it had been dashed against some rocks and so was half filled with water. During the night this boat had also pushed back into the bay so that the motor’s propeller had dug down into the sand. Luckily the askaris had managed to lift the boat up and dislodge the motor from the sand as well as pull the small fishing boat to safety.
We also found a third boat in the bay and upon closer inspection realized that this was one of the boats that had been moored in Kipili, 3.8km away from the island. Somehow it had broken its anchor rope and had miraculously landed up in the bay at
The back of the boat had been badly broken by the rocks just off the bay and the askaris were struggling to keep the boat from being broken up further. Sadly there was very little that we could do and so we were forced to leave the boat to the mercy of the 4-foot waves and the rocks.
The wind blew all that day, making the lake too rough for the guys to come across to do any work, so we found ourselves stranded on the island with no way of getting to the mainland and no way of anyone coming to us. The following day, once the lake had calmed down, the “Tumbo” was able to come over to Lupita and we had the hole fixed in our boat.
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