This weekend I went to Kibuye which is in the West of Kigali on Lake Kivu. We stayed in this cute little guesthouse right on the lake. It was amazing. It was so beautiful, words cannot even describe. Not to mention the fact we could see the Democratic Republic of Congo across the lake. At night you could see the volcano glowing in Goma. It is such a bizarre feeling knowing you are standing in the heart of Africa.
I spent my time basically sunbathing on the dock in front of the house. I managed to get quite burnt. I put on sun block, but of course being practically on the Equator the sun is very powerful. I’m a new shade of red…which is a little embarrassing.
There were four of us staying at the house, three German girls and myself. As you can imagine…we attracted some attention. At first it was merely the fishermen that would pass by and hang out in front of our dock. But, then they began to bring boats filled with children to come stare at us. Yes, we became a human zoo. The kids were fine at first, but the last group decided it would be fun to start screaming at us. Of course the adults with them thought this was hilarious. It’s bad enough to gawk, but to start screaming inappropriate things…not so much ok. I love kids, but poorly behaved children really bother me.
This of course does not happen all of the time. Most of the time the people are warm and friendly and the kids just want to shake your hands and practice their French. Luckily I speak about as much French as the kids do. It somehow seems to work out.
On the way home, we managed to get pulled over. We crossed over a solid line to pass someone. The police officer only spoke Kinyarwanda. After spending a few minutes attempting to explain to us what we had done, he just got frustrated and had has us leave. Sometimes being a foreigner has its advantages :-)
When we returned home, we were tired, sunburnt, and starving so we went out to this new ‘hip’ restaurant. We waited 30 minutes to get all of our drinks (my friend ordered a tea which, even though it is the national drink, seemed to cause problems)…for over 2 hours for our food…and about 15 minutes to get the check. Argh! And of course it was one of the most expensive restaurants in Kigali. In fact an American lady was managing for the night…so frustrating. You have to wonder…what exactly they are doing. How can they possibly take so long to prepare pasta, salad, and a couple burgers? Did they have to slaughter the cow and make the pasta from scratch? Amazing.
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