After getting a ride up the hill to the bus station in Kibuye, Simone, Salla, Vishnu and I  got a bus ticket and went straight to Gisenyi!


Once again the ride was the best part, the green scenery, the cleanliness, seeing the locals walk on the street carrying a million things! This time we saw a lot of road work and I was impressed by how nice the road was. I had read a blog from 2014 about the terrible 6 hour bumpy ride from Kibuye to Gisenyi but I think in the last 3 years Rwanda has done an amazing job at building roads; the whole drive took less than 2 hours on a beautifully paved road!!

Hard at work on the road!

Women put a strap around the sack and that's how they balance it on their head! pretty impressive!

Rwanda is big on tea so as we drove we were able to see tons of beautiful tea plantations that reminded me of Sri Lanka.


While going from city to city in Rwanda I always saw a lot of people walking on the street carrying things and thought it was interesting that they weren't using busses or any other method of transportation but then I realised that 1. they have been doing it this way all their life, and 2. that the road is a new thing, so I couldn't help but wonder: Do locals like the roads? Do they like their dirt roads being paved and having cars going at full speed when they used to peacefully walk all over the rocky and muddy ground?

The bus stopped for a second and I quickly snapped this photo with the volcano en the back!

We finally arrived in Gisenyi and we could see a beautiful Volcano right in front of where the bus dropped us off. The volcano is in DRC (democratic Republic of Congo) and Gisenyi is literally walking distance from the border.
As soon as we got off the bus we started looking for a place to sleep as we hadn't booked anything but hopefully I couch surfer had given some recommendations and it easy to find. We ended up paying $8 each for a room with hot water, that's what we call luxury in this part of the world!!!


At night we went out for some drinks and sat by the beach on lake kivu.


After some drinks we went out and saw red coming out of the volcano. Apparently Mt Nyiragongo, one of the volcanoes in Congo, is active and has the largest lava lake in the world and at night  with the fog and the smoke it looks red.. super cool!


The following day I touched base with a couch surfer who had offered take me to a pre-school. I had bought some soccer balls from the left over money from the donations and off I went on a boda boda to the preschool.

As we arrived the children went crazy! They climbed on Emmanuel's legs and started pulling everything they could from me. In all honesty it was very annoying! No adult told them not to pull my stuff or pull my hair. At the end I decided to sit down and take turns playing with the kids.

They loved touching (and pulling) my hair so it ended in a bun!

Head, shoulders, knees, and toes!

After visiting the pre school and playing with the kids I walked back to town with Emmanuel; we got to talk and he asked me if I had any siblings and I said yes. Obviously I asked him the same question and he started telling me his life story and how he was born in 1994 and was left an orphan after 2 weeks of being born and he grew up in an orphanage and that's why he was so involved with an orphanage and a preschool and making sure they had resources. He then told me that a couple of years ago Rwanda went from an orphanage system to a foster care system, meaning that now kids with no parents go to a foster family. The only remaining orphanages in the country are run by NGOs from other countries. I didn't want to ask too many questions because I would assume it is a tricky subject so I just asked who he lives with now; he said that at age 18 the government moved him from the orphanage to an apartment with other orphans but then that program ended and he was given the equivalent of $7 a month for rent, school, and food. Even in Rwanda $7 is nothing so I asked him how he survived and he said that he was able to move with an aunt (I think the term aunt is more a endearment term rather than a blood related one) who gave him a place to stay so he could spend the $7/month for food and that's how he was able to survive with what he was given. It was incredible!
Soon we reached town and he showed me where to have lunch and he headed back to his office.

Every time we wanted to eat in Rwanda we ended up in a local buffet style restaurant that wasn't bad, but wasn't great. It was amazing to see the amount of food that people put on their plate! It literally looked like a volcano, some times the food was even dripping off the plate!!!

Look at the massive pile of food!

By the third day only Vishnu and I were left in Gisenyi so we decided to do a google search to see what we could do in Gisenyi.  It turned out that Gisenyi was pretty boring and didn't have much to do but in a blog I was able to find the amazing "Atelier de poupees" (dolls workshop)

workshop is hidden inside a hotel compound.

This workshop gave work to some local women making African dolls, bags, aprons, and lots of beautiful things at very affordable prices. One doll at the shop was 6,000 francs ($7) compared to $25 at the airport for the same doll!

The workshop

Doing the hair!

Found a gigantic doll!!!!

From there we went to the local market to try to find a jacket for Vishnu to go hike Mt Nyiragongo.

Vishnu working on his bargaining skills!

He found (and bought) an SF Giants hoodie for $4! (compared to $60 at the Giants stadium!)

We ended our day by walking around town, going to the border with Congo, and enjoying the view of Lake Kivu!

Mid day nap!

200m from Congo!

One can hardly believe this is in Africa!

Next stop: Musanze, for the last 4 days in Rwanda!