The Remba Experience

Last week was spent on Remba Island in Lake Victoria and it was quite an experience! The whole point of going to Remba was to assist Pamoja with the scale up of their safe water project on the island. We were helping distribute personal and family water filters since the island has a very high rate of diarrheal illnesses due to the lack of safe water. Additionally, we were conducting a survey of families who were in the pilot project trying to determine the barriers to use of the filters.

To get to Remba, we had to take a matatu to Luanda (1.5 hrs), take a ferry to Mbeta (45 min), overnight in Mbeta, and then take a small boat out to the island (3 hrs). We arrived at Remba to to find a small rock in the middle of the lake covered in tiny tin homes. Over 5,000 people live on the island, most of whom are fisherman who come for work. The population is dynamic as people come and go with the fishing seasons but there are some permanent residents. Unfortunately, Remba is known for two things - firstly, a lack of safe water for drinking and secondly, a lot of prostitution leading to one of the highest HIV rates in the country.

The problem with Remba is that it doesn't really have any facilities. By facilities, I am referring to simple essentials such as pit latrines and a health care facility. We stayed in a guesthouse on the island which was basically a tiny tin shack, but it also contained the only pit latrine we could find on the island. As you can imagine, lack of basic sanitation contributes to the already unsafe waters of Lake Victoria which is the only source of water for the people on the island.

In addition to its dangerous water, Remba also does not have any health care facilities. There is a weekly mobile HIV clinic that comes to the island and we also had a chance to sit in and observe some clinic visits. We saw many patients with HIV opportunistic infections who were very ill and must face a 3 hour boat ride to the nearest hospital. There is also a lot of TB.

Although it was definitely a difficult trip, we are all glad that we went and saw what these people go through first hand. We met a lot of warm and welcoming people who were very thankful for Pamoja’s efforts.

Now we are back in Kit Mikayi. We had an amazing Indian buffet in town last night after returning from the island, spent the night camping under the stars on the rocks and went bouldering this morning. We only have two weeks left working with Pamoja and are starting to sort our travel plans for the back end of July.