Watsemba Miriam
Sinking Land explores the bittersweet relationship between man and water for the people living at Ripon landing site, which is the closest site to the actual source of the Nile River within Lake Victoria, Uganda.
It is a 5-10 minute boat ride from the site to the spot in Lake Victoria where former Riponi Falls, River Nile and Lake Victoria interlock. This spot is known to be the point where River Nile starts to flow in Uganda, eventually continuing its flow up to Egypt.
With a current population of 574 as per the voting register of 2021, Ripon landing site continues to experience a reduction in both land area and population due to rising water levels in Lake Victoria. Before the water rose, the landing site was 100 meters from the lakeshore. The water has since covered more than 50 meters of that land, according to Abdu Nantabya, the area Local Council 5 chairman who has lived at the site for 34 years.
The current rise in Lake Victoria water levels started in October 2019 and rose steadily to a peak of 13.32 meters on 30th April 2020, according to a statement issued by the Uganda Ministry of Water and Environment.
This rise of 1.32 meters was attained in only 6 months, and the level was only 0.08 meters away from the highest level ever recorded at 13.42 metres in 1964. Lakeside communities were flooded and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced.
‘Sinking Land’ explores how people living, working and visiting the site interact with the changing levels of water and how that affects their living conditions.
According to the local council member Abdu Nantabya, the population of people on Ripon Landing Site reduced in 8 months from more than 700 to less than 500 as of March 2021.
The causes for the rise in water levels include climate change, which has affected the season rotations and rain cycles, as well as poor or no environmental conservation practices in the daily lives of people living along the banks of the lake.
Runoff has risen due to heavy rainfall combined with urbanization and agriculture, as humans convert land that naturally absorbs water, such as forests and wetlands, to cities or farms.
Data from the UN-run Flood and Drought Portal shows that runoff in all four sub-regions bordering Lake Victoria increased 575 percent in the last four months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018.
It is predicted that the water is likely to keep rising all through 2021 due to increased rainfall and a spike in runoff into rivers and streams that feed the lake.
Lake Victoria is a transboundary water body shared by Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, with some of the rivers feeding it originating from as far as Rwanda and Burundi and yet with only one outlet through River Nile in Jinja, Uganda. When waters surge in upstream countries, they affect the lake, too.
‘Everything happened too fast’
“Everything happened too fast. My family and I had a very short time to move,” says Daku Musa.
He says that at first, it seemed like a minor change in water waves that would calm in a few days, so his family simply locked the door of the house that faced the lakeside and placed their valuable items on higher grounds within the house. However, in less than a week, the water was now covering the beds – so they had to move as fast as possible, saving only household items such as utensils, food, beddings, clothes and the children’s books.
“We had no time to raise money for a truck, so we shifted in trips, carrying and saving what we could before nightfall,” he says.
The remains of Daku’s former house and home after the water from the lake invaded the dry land area in August 2020. Daku had to move his family to a nearby place, away from the landing site where he now has to pay a monthly rent. At the site, he only had to pay a small daily tax of UGX 300 (USD $0.09) to Jinja Municipal Council.
‘I cannot just give up and leave’
“Our restaurant location has been shifted multiple times because the water keeps coming for us,” says 20-year-old Kitonto Hussein, a restaurant operator at Ripon Landing Site.
Kitonto Hussein’s restaurant provides affordable feeding for the local and visiting populations at the landing site. The back of her restaurant borders the lake so closely that there is barely any land area. Any increase in the water levels would mean displacement for her business.
However, Kitonto hangs on because this place is the source of her livelihood. “I cannot just give up and leave,” she says.
Kitonto’s restaurant is famous for rolex (chapati and eggs) which is a major delicacy in Uganda and is believed to have originated from Jinja, where Kitonto works. She also sells local food and quick fried snacks like cassava, samosas, pancakes and mandazi to people living, working and visiting the landing site.
Those who stayed
Before the waters rose, transporting people and goods on the water was a big hit at Ripon Landing site, including tourists visiting the source of the Nile and traders who live and work on the various islands of Lake Victoria. Before the water displaced some of the people, there were 50 boats at the site run by 15 boat owners.
More than half were forced to move after the flooding occurred. Today, there are only 23 boats with 6 boat owners.
The biggest challenge that came with the flooding has been a lack of parking space, according to Abdu Nantabya, a local leader who is also a boat owner. Before, there was enough space to park the boats far from people’s homes. Now, the boats compete for space with shops and homes.
The Covid-19 lockdown with its limitations on movement has also made the situation worse for the water transport business, Nantabya says.
Despite the challenges, boat owner Abdu says he cannot leave Ripon, no matter what happens.
“I have educated my children from the money tourists give me here when I take them across the lake on my boat,” Abdu says. “It is less than 15 minutes to the source of the Nile from here.”
The transport boats are locally made at Ripon Landing site. “Women are our biggest clients, because they are usually the business owners at the site,” says Engineer Muganga Hussein, owner of the biggest boat making business at the landing site.
Fishermen sorting fish from the nets after a 6 am morning catch in Lake Victoria, at Ripon landing site. According to the fishermen, the rising levels of water in the lake, attracts all sorts of crawling aquatic animals like crabs which end up in the nets, together with the fish. These have to be sorted out as the market in Uganda does not consume crabs. Fish are taken to be sold in the markets of Jinja town, about a 20-minute walk away.
Of the 574 people at the site, about 80-100 are fishermen. With the fishmongers, the number who depend on the fishing industry goes to about 130.
But before the floods, the fishermen and mongers came to about 250. When the water increased, the fish that can be caught from the lake reduced, according to the local council chairman Abdu Nantabya. With normal levels of water, the fish are closer to the shores. With higher levels, fish are taken further away to deeper areas, where they are more difficult to catch.
Other types of fish caught from the lake include helicopter fish (bukolongo), mudfish (emamba), silverfish (mukene) among others.
Smiles, for now
“Mata ga baana,” a local mobile band from Masaka, entertains the locals at the site on a regular basis for small money change. The landing site is one of a series of stops the band normally makes along the lakeside villages.
As the band performs, the people of Ripon landing site temporarily forget the threat of the rising lake sinking the land, the threat of the waters washing away their work spaces and homes.
No matter what tomorrow brings, for a moment at least, there is only music, dancing, and smiles for all.
This #EverydayNile story was supported by InfoNile with funding from IHE-Delft Global Partnership for Water and Development.