 Kazungu was born Jean-Damascene in Nyamagabe, in the South Province of Rwanda, a light-skinned boy in a family of four daughters and two other sons. Kazungu literally means ‘small white person’, and it’s a popular nickname for babies appearing to have lighter skin.
When Kazungu first met Rwandan Adventures he had been working in construction. We love having him on our team because he will turn his hand to anything: the beautiful garden you’ll see at our lakeside office is 100% his own creation, but it’s not unusual for him to be transferring guest luggage one minute, before rustling up a delicious picnic lunch for a hiking tour the next. For Kazungu, working for a social enterprise means that he has benefitted from a steady salary and medical insurance for the last four years. “When I worked in construction, I never knew how much I would earn from one month to the next because it would depend on whether I could find jobs. Bosses were also not reliable so they could make us wait weeks without paying.” Kazungu now supports his younger brothers and sisters, paying their school fees and sending money for daily essentials such as electricity and food. But he always has an eye on the future: using the money he has saved from his salary, he recently bought a parcel of land on the edge of lake Kivu. “The house is small and needs a lot of work, but owning land in a place like this is a great investment and it means I have somewhere to live.”
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MamaNelly runs a tiny restaurant in the small fishing village of Nkora on the edge of Lake Kivu, Rwanda. If you join us on a mountain biking tour on the Congo Nile Trail, there’s a good chance you’ll have lunch with her. Mother of four girls at secondary school, MamaNelly (literally “Nelly’s mother”) has already given her children a better start in life than she was able to enjoy. Born in 1975, she left primary school after four years, when there was no money available in the family to pay for her to continue. But MamaNelly is not the kind of person to sit around doing nothing. Like most girls in Rwanda, she had learnt to cook her family’s meals and she decided to use that knowledge to cater at the weddings of neighbours and friends. The last few years have introduced her to very different clients: Muzungus! “Muzungu” is the respectful name used to describe Caucasian visitors to Rwanda, but it’s generally used to describe any foreigner. MamaNelly has seen her home town subtly changed as more and more Muzungus travel through, whether hiking or cycling on the Congo Nile Trail. “I still only have simple cooking facilities (a single charcoal stove and a few pans), but I laugh so much when our guests enjoy local food like Dodo (a green leaf prepared like spinach) or Isambaza (sardines, freshly caught from the lake). It’s also really funny, how much foreigners enjoy Rwandan avocados, which grow everywhere”. With the extra money that MamaNelly earns from tourists, she has been able to pay for government health insurance for all of her family and she’s working on improving her kitchen so that she can cook more than one thing at a time. “I am so grateful to Rwandan Adventures because they showed me a better way to earn money and helped me to change in terms of interacting with people of different nationalities” Rwandan Adventures is a social enterprise: we work to provide employment in rural Rwanda and to support other small businesses in areas which are so far off the beaten track that tourists are a rare sight. Planning your tour with Rwandan Adventures, means that you’ll be supporting these micro businesses. If you would like to experience ManaNelly’s great Rwandan cooking and hospitality, contact us today to organise your visit to Rwanda: We organise tailored tours including mountain gorilla trekking, Akagera Park safaris, kayaking, hiking and biking in any part of the country.  
 Iragena Leandre doesn’t know his exact birthday, but his mother knows she was harvesting sorghum, so we guess it was August 1993, a few months before the genocide began. Leandre’s family (he has seven brothers and sisters) are subsistence farmers: they live only from the food they grow on their land. Things didn’t start well: born at a time of incredible devastation and upheaval in Rwanda, he suffered malnutrition as a child, recovering fully only when he was 16. None of this got in the way of Leandre’s determination and intelligence. His teachers recognised his potential and he was selected for support by a small charity which paid his school fees. That’s the only push he needed to succeed. He went on to win a scholarship to study Zoology and Conservation at the National University of Rwanda. He now puts his knowledge to good use by training our guides to share the secrets of Rwanda’s astonishing flora and fauna. His fascination with the mountain gorillas and Rwanda's other primates endures, but he also designs mountain biking and hiking tours that take in the most beautiful of the 1000 hills while staying off the beaten track. “I’m really proud to be working for a social enterprise in tourism. I’m learning what it takes to run a small business and I’m glad that the taxes we pay are contributing to the growth of my country, schools and roads. Rwanda cannot be dependent on charity money forever. Mostly, I’m proud that I can support my parents: my salary pays for the school fees of my young brothers and sisters and I am sure they have enough to eat” Email us now to plan your visit to Rwanda. Leandre responds to guest emails and he’ll be happy to tell you more.  28/4/2016 2 Comments Lake MuhaziA few weeks ago, I embarked on an expedition to discover a new biking tour around Lake Muhazi in the Eastern Province. I set out on one of our bicycles to find a new tour. I am very pleased to report the search was a failure! Let me explain... I was hoping to find a nice, flat biking tour. Something suitable for someone like me, who spends most of her time behind a computer screen, rather than in the saddle. Something without the ups and downs of some other tours. And something that would allow our visitors to combine a couple of days’ cycling with a trip to Akagera Game Park. So I set off on my bike, and Fidens followed on behind, in the car, with supplies – water, money, etc. I reached the top of a long stretch, with wonderful, panoramic views over Lake Muhazi stretching out in front of me. I sat in the warm sunshine, mesmerised by the beautiful views. I needed to drink in the sight, but I also needed to drink some water. And it was at that point I realised Fidens was nowhere to be seen. After a while, I heard Fidens driving towards me. But he wasn’t alone – he now had a passenger. He handed over the water, while apologising and then explaining where he had been. Fidens had noticed a tiny signpost at the side of the road, pointing towards “Maison du Lac” and decided to investigate. He followed the sign down a long drive from the main (mud) road, past some unusually tall trees, eventually emerging at the shore of the lake and a charming, old colonial house. At the house, Fidens was warmly welcomed by Jacques, the owner. Jacques' Belgian father had worked in Rwanda where he met and married Jacques’ mother, a Rwandan woman. Jacques was Fidens’ passenger in the car when he came to pick me up. We went back to the house and spent a wonderful afternoon, drinking tea in Jacques’ garden and listening to his stories of the past in both Rwanda and Belgium. Jacques takes visitors for really authentic trips to Akagera, camping with his guests and making sure everyone has the most wonderful bush experience, helping guests to track down animals. So we had failed to find a new biking tour at Lake Muhazi – but we couldn’t be more pleased with what we did find. Because now, when you book a trip to Akagera with us – your guide will be Jacques himself. And, when you book the Lake Muhazi Tour, we will take you down a long drive from the main road, past some unusually tall trees towards the shore of the lake, and have a picnic in the shade, in a the garden of a beautiful colonial house – the House on the Lake.  |
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October 2019
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