Piles and piles of grass were cleaned on the mainland.

The grass is pulled through a homemade comb of nails to remove the outside sheaths.

The very last load of cleaned grass arrives at Lupita.

The finished product all neatly stacked and ready for use.

It is hard to comprehend the man hours that have gone into each stack of cleaned grass.

Sunset on Lupita Island

Our home at sunset.

Mvimwa Island (the view from our compound)

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 Island for 2 days. We played loads of Scrabble and read while waiting for the winds to die down so that the “Tumbo” could come across to fix our boat. But more about this is the story below.

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!

Our first guests.

From left to right: Erik, Chris and Lou and Amelia

Hurricane Katrina affects Lupita

On Sunday night 28^th 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 Lupita Island. We could hardly believe our eyes. Of all the places for this boat to have been washed up to, it was unbelievable that it had landed up at Lupita. The boat was brand new and had never been used, so this was its MAIDEN VOYAGE.

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.

The other boat sank completely and 2 days later it took 140 men to pull it out from the lake. I am not sure if it will float again, but I think it will make a great bar, with a wonderful story.

Our poor tent after the storm!

An angry Lake Tanganyika after the storm

Chris and the askaris battle to keep the transfer boat off the rocks

Our boat is half filled with water and we all bail furiously to keep it from sinking

Sadly there was nothing that we could do for the transfer boat and it sank completely. Note how calm the lake usually is.

Madonna looks on as the transfer boat is pulled out of the water. It took 140 guys to heave the huge boat onto the shore.

And here she will stay for the meantime

Bartholomew's boundaries

We have had several close encounters between the baboon, our dogs and Maverick, the male cat. I am quite happy to have Bartholomew outside our compound but on four occasions he has been inside our compound, sitting in one of the trees over our tents.

The first time this happened we were still in bed when we heard our German Shepherd, Madonna, barking. We leapt out of bed and saw Madonna charging towards Bartholomew. Luckily, Bartholomew got a fright, jumped out of the tree that he was in, fled towards the compound fence and only stopped when he felt that he was a safe distance from Madonna. He then turned and eyed out this strange creature that had run at him and it took a bit of persuading to get him to leave the compound.

The same thing happened 3 days later. This time it was Maverick’s turn to chase Bartholomew. Chris ran out, stick in hand, just in time to see Maverick running after Bartholomew with his hair on end, looking very fierce.

Luckily for us, Bartholomew does not seem to be aggressive in any way. If he was he could very easily have killed any one of our animals. Instead we continue to be a source of great amusement and entertainment for him. On most mornings he sits on one of the 4 huge rocks overlooking our compound, watching us while we do our exercises in the morning or in one of the trees close to our shower area where he is able to look across to Mvimwa Island (Fisherman’s Island). But we are still very careful with him and always make sure to chase him out of our compound so that he knows where his boundaries are.

Bartholomew on his rock.

Dance like no-one is watching you

Last Saturday we held a party for all the staff from Lupita Island. Chris and I are the first Foreigners to ever live on the Island and this was the main purpose for the party. Everyone was so excited and the staff spent days discussing what would be served and where the party would be held.

After much organization, the party was held in a dusty courtyard, surrounded on all 4 sides by houses. Someone had strung up some brightly coloured, flashing lights across the centre of the courtyard and on one of the walls of the houses. Mika, the welding fundi, was the D.J. and music was blaring forth from the 2 huge speakers as we were led into the courtyard.

We were taken to the seats of honour at an old, wooden table and only once we had received our drinks was the bar officially open. We had bought 2 goats and some extra goat meat for the occasion. This was grilled and handed around to everyone. Once again, it was only after Chris and I had been served our food that dinner was served to everyone else. It was really quite delicious.

After a short speech from Chris and an even shorted speech from me (it had to be in Swahili of course), Chris and I opened the dance floor and the party began in full. It was so wonderful to see everyone thoroughly enjoying themselves.

I once read a list of 10 things that one should do while alive and one of them was: DANCE AS IF NO-ONE IS WATCHING YOU. Well we all did and it was such fun. I can highly recommend it.