Celebration as ‘God takes hyacinth away’

Lwang’ni beach covered by water hyacinth in January 2017 and free of the weed. [Photo: Denish Ochieng/Standard]

Alphayo Onyango Sunday made his first boat ride in Lake Victoria’s Lwang’ni beach after five months.

A team of football players who visited the beach in the morning were the first clients of the leisure boat operator.

Mr Onyango has been unable to venture into the lake due to the stubborn water hyacinth, which had covered Lwang’ni and many other beaches since December last year.

But Sunday, residents woke up to find the weed, which had been drifting away slowly over the past one week gone about 300 metres into the lake, leaving the shores clear.

Jovial locals had only one idea of who to thank for the miracle: God.

“I hope politicians will not run around saying how they have spent millions of money to remove the weed. The weed has gone through the grace of God and we hope something will be done to prevent it from coming back,” said John Ouma, who washes vehicles at Lwang’ni beach.

Just like Mr Ouma, Onyango is also hoping the weed will stay forever wherever it was being pushed by the current God-sent winds.

“I am telling you the past five months have been hell to us. I had to transfer my boat to Dunga beach, where we had to pay Sh3,000 to be admitted, but still the beach owners regulated how we work. They gave priority to their own boats, considering us strangers,” he said. The faint-hearted, Onyango says, abandoned their boats and ventured into other businesses to fend for their families.

As the weed drifted away, some boat owners started cleaning their vessels in readiness for business. Others, however, decided to watch from the shores,  monitoring the movement of the weed before ‘risking’ to go back to the waters.

Vera Nyawera, who operates an eatery, was all smiles as she looked at the mass of weed disappearing.

Those who frequent the beach to enjoy boat rides are her main clients but they have been rare.

“The whole of Sunday we served only two customers here. Things have been so bad that at some point we had to close shop,” she said.

Fishermen have also felt the pain, after most of them abandoned the trade.

Kisumu residents were not spared too as the water supply was affected by the weed, which covered Kisumu Water and Sewerage System’s main water abstraction point.

But while the residents are praying and hoping the weed would go away for good, Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) is pessimistic.

Regional KMA manager Jeremiah Onyango said the only way to get rid of the hyacinth is to remove it.

“You may think the weed is going, but it will go nowhere. It will get to other parts of the gulf, but come back when the direction of the wind changes,” he said.

Use of special weevils to eat up the weed and manual removal have failed  while a Sh80 million harvester has been lying idle since it was acquired a year ago.