Lake flies

We really love living close to Lake Victoria.  It's a HUGE lake, so you can't see the other side and sometimes we've gone on a little day trip out to an island about an hour away by boat, which makes us feel like we're just miles away from our ordinary lives in Musoma.  Before we moved to our current house, we lived so close to the lake that we could hear the waves on the beach, which I really enjoyed.

However, there is a downside of the lake - lake flies!  There is some cool scientific process by which they hatch under the surface and then get to the surface and create the crazy swarms of flies, but I don't really remember it.  What I do know is that sometimes we can look out over the lake and see clouds of miniscule (they really are very tiny) flies that make it look like smoke is coming out of the lake.  Most stay out there, but if there is a little puff of wind to blow them into shore, then the parts of town near the lake are flooded with swarms of flies.  It's like a biblical plague, except they don't bite or anything.  They travel in swarms and hover around houses and over roads for a day or two, then they all fall to the ground dead in stinky piles.  If you're walking or riding a bike, they get in your eyes, nose, and mouth if you have to cross through a swarm of them on your way somewhere.  And it seems like they are everywhere, so avoiding swarms entirely is tricky business!  When they die, they smell like dead fish, and if you sweep them up right away, they smear dead fish smell around.  I have learned from locals to wait a day to let them dry out and crisp up, then they sweep up nicely with no lingering effects.

On the bright side, some of the local people groups think lake flies are a nice delicacy and enjoy frying them up or making them into soup.  The non-lake fly eating groups think this is revolting.  For those who like them, I think that they've figured out a great way to be happy instead of annoyed when a swarm comes into town!