From the Land of 10,000 Lakes to the Land of 150,000 Islands.

We drive over the floodplain, bouncing violently along on a road, or really a trail blazed by someone who left their tire tracks on this particular path previously. The ruts in the path are large, and toss the little white pickup up and down, back and forth as it nobly attempts to navigate along the path that seemed steady only from a distance. The pink sun sinks into the haze, making its final encore until the morning. It leaves the stage that is the sky to the full moon that rises opposite.


In a few months all we drive over will be gone, held hostage by the rains and drowned completely in the subsequent floods. The ground here is mostly dry, sandy, yet boggy in the most unpredictable places. Some of the mud is obvious, a thick black mess created by a combination of the water from the occasional lagoon and the refuse of the animals that drink from it. They have left their footprints and the indents of their bodies where they sleep and roll in the mixture to cool down at night. Simon points this out to me.


We drive on. We must take caution as we continue to not become stuck. The sand beneath us betrays what in a few months time this expanse will become; a glassy swiftly flowing river. The grasses, which once waved in the calm yet deeply flowing currents have been chewed down to short tufts by the livestock that have made this place their refuge from the dusty, dry, barren village field further up the gently sloping riverbank.


The village children have also made this their haven, no longer afraid of the crocs and hippos that will inhabit this very acreage when the rains come; they have erected goal posts for a futbol field. Patches are charred by fires set by the villagers after they’ve come to collect the long, dried reeds for their traditional roofs and fences. They do this so as to make net fishing easier when the rains come. Long wood makoro boats lay abandoned on the shores; they too await the rains, which will render them useful again.


Huge termite mounds create what will become thousands of small islands when the river floods, trees take advantage of this elevation and dense rich dirt to put down their roots. The trees act as a filter for all the dusty waste that settles in this area while the lands are dry, while also providing ready food for the termites to continue building their empire. It’s just another of the symbiotic relationships that make the delta the unique ecosystem it is.


Simon casts his fishing pole into one of the larger lagoons; I peer into the pond and am surprised to see what looks like small jellyfish. This area is so beautifully mysterious, it never fails to produce something to amaze me when I am quiet and examine it closely enough. The delta and the floodplains especially are magic, striking a balance as delicate as the dragonflies’ wings that hover like fairies in the vanishing daylight.