Gisenyi

Shannon on the beach in front of the Serena Hotel, Lake Kivu.
This photo was taken from near the top of the hill on my bike ride.
This is just outside of Kigali on the road north. In the foreground are banana trees.

Shannon and I traveled with Emmy to the Northern Province again this weekend. Our first stop was at the former home of Rosamond Carr, who was an American woman who moved to Rwanda in the 1950s and ran a pyrethrum (natural insecticide) plantation for many years until she converted the plantation to an orphanage after genocide. I have read her biography "Land of a Thousand Hills" about her many years in Rwanda. She lived to age 96 and when she died she was Rwanda's oldest citizen.

It was wonderful to visit her former home, which is still being run as an orphanage. We had a tour and met some of the young people who live there. There is a magnificent flower garden for the house and flowers are also grown as a source of income for the orphanage. They have a large vegetable garden and goats and cows, so there is plenty of food. Currently about 100 children live there. It is a tranquil place and I can well understand why Madame Carr chose to spend her final 57 years in Rwanda.

We continued on to Gisenyi, which is a small town at the northern part of Lake Kivu. It is right next to the border of the DRC. We visited a hot spring where boiling water pours out of the earth. People use the hot water to cook potatoes and wash clothes. There were a number of bathers when we visited.

Emmy brought the bike I gave him, so my big thrill was cycling about 6 or 7 kms back from the brewery to Gisenyi. There was a pretty good hill to climb, which made for a very fun descent. I could happily have cycled in the area for hours but Emmy had to drive back to Kigali.

Shannon and I stayed overnight in Gisenyi and spent some very pleasant hours sitting on the beach at the Serena Hotel and watching people swimming and the sunset.

We took a bus back to Kigali today. It was jam packed and poor Shannon had five people squished into three seats with her.

Tomorrow is our last academic day and then we will have a lovely dinner at Heaven to say goodbye to the staff and residents.