How to get around in Kisumu

One way to get around Kisumu is by tuktuk. They are usually Piaggio scooters with a passenger cab in the back that are meant to seat three but as you can tell by this photo, they can sometimes fit up to 5. It costs about 100ksh to get around in one of these (~$1.67CDN).

Pictured are the residents of our 3-bedroom house. Left to right, we are Jenny (North Bay, Ontario), Jessica (Zwolle, Holland), Paul (Ottawa, Ontario), Joanna (Toronto, Ontario) and Alyssa (Toronto, Ontario).

There are a few other ways to get around town (besides walking, of course). A boda-boda is a pretty standard bike fashioned with a cushion over the rear wheel so a second passenger can sit fairly comfortably. People also use boda-bodas to transport goods (commonly bread or water). They use old bike tubes to strap their goods onto the rear seat and can commonly be stacked about a metre high!

Matatus are crowded 11-seater vans that normally hold up to 20 people. Many of them can be identified by their unique decals and paint jobs. There are several that pay tribute to North American musicians like Ciara, Nelly and Rick Ross. We've even seen one with a huge graphic of Barack Obama's face on the U.S. dollar.

In case you didn't know, Barack Obama Sr. is from near Kisumu and is a Luo, the majority tribe in this part of Kenya. In other words, people love Obama here.