By the early age of 10 years I was in Primary three class, and the only way to reach our school was to first cross a big swampy area “Kiyanja swamp” in Masindi District Uganda.
During that time many people cultivated crops, mostly during the dry spell, to sell in town to generate money. There existed a man called Waman who decided to use that swamp for both seasons, dry and wet, and he could double the output.
During one afternoon in rainy season, Mr Waman and his family were in the formerly degraded land where they were setting up a field to plant crops. Soon there came a black cloud forming with a high thunder accompanied with some little drizzles. Mr Waman told his family including his children and his wife to move home. As for him, he would will come later to finalize with some debris which had remained in the middle of garden. The rain now started and fell heavily on him as he continued with his work, knowing tomorrow it would be planting day.
After it had stopped the water had surrounded the man and he could not identify where the route was before. Minutes later as he proceeded to make a step, all the water swallowed him and he was nowhere to be seen.
The family members waited at home for the family head to return back from the garden but he was nowhere to be seen. In early morning the wife announced the disappearance of her husband. She took the community members to the garden where she had left him, unfortunately to find it was a real newly formed small lake covering an area of half a kilometer.
The place had turned to lake and now an amazing scenario occurred. After the lake had formed, a little Cajanus cajan (Pigeon pea plant) grew inside the lake. Because of the photo-tropism of the plant towards light, where it grows bending due to wind after wind blowing it, the people in the lakeside region could harvest a lot of their output in the garden.
People now started fishing and later it was discovered that the dishes prepared from there were not sweeter since the lake contained a lot of mud compared to lakes with sand and salty bottoms.
The Masindi District planning office together with the National Water and Sewage Cooperation (NWSC) identified the alternative use of the lake to generate water to supply the town. Up to now the lake is now under NWSC serving Masindi District with clean water for use.
Meanwhile, the creation of the lake claimed a man who up to now has never been found. The plant harvest up to now for people where the pigeon pea bean is has a higher yield, the woman who lost her husband still lives close to the lake to see when her husband could return back and the children of the late Mr Wamani are paid a monthly fund in rememberence of their Dad and this caters for their tuition clearances and other dues. The lake name remains Lake Kiyanja.
But the message behind this is: to never turn the natural water ecosystem into plantation fields.
Let’s conserve Nature.
My Environment is my responsibility.
I am a student for Nature.
About the Entry
- Blogger name | Wandera Alex
- Site name | Alexander Agricultural and Environmental Advocacy
- Site URL | https://swtxander.blogspot.com
- Twitter | @WanderaAlex5
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- Why should someone visit your site? The world population is increasing at an alarming rate and this implies that the increased population adds to food production requirements for all people to be fed. Through my Advocacy you can learn a lot about Agriculture and how to produce food using limited resources. High population in an area means a lot of environment degradation through land pollution, water and ecosystem destruction, so through my Advocacy you can learn how to protect the natural ecosystem, sustainable use of resources and make the world more green for the future generations.
- Entry Number | 39
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