A really great weekend, drove up to Kibuye with a friend from an Orphanage in Gitarama, Nicola works for a SA based charity who manage training centers around Africa.
Kibuye is about 2 ½ hours from Kigali we left on Saturday morning - any trip in the country will take you past some memorial and it must be commented on - this one is past the worst of perhaps all the atrocities. The Catholic Church in which 11400 people seeking shelter where massacred, the priest implicated in the murders havicorralledled the congregation only to close the doors and alert tmilitiatia. Sadly for the church this is not the only such incident involving clergy from the church during those 100 days.
Perhaps why such an immediate effort was made to get the Pope here so soon after the Genocide - in fact it was he who would first call the killings genocide.
From there onto the Guesthouse and a day of fun and skiing. The idea was to drive back. Crazy! Who could leave such tranquility? Checked in and stayed the night.
Met some great people, a couple from Columbia University, who will be staying in Kigali for a few years and have just seen in their first month!
Extremely interesting, He got a model village getting built very near where the NEW Kigali will rise - a new modern business district and airport is planned and work starts very soon according to reports I read.
Some interesting views on the country's Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, amongst others.
Also met a local security company owner, (Italian with a German accent hey it's Africa baby anything goes!) who tells me he is bringing in the (Boer Bulls) (Its a breed of dog for those not familiar with the term) from SA - Very sad! As you can gufavoritemy fovorite breed and I feel that the last thing Rwanda needs is MORE dogs!
And now something on the lake (I included this in a article sent to Moneyweb, I took the research from the pages scientistw sceintist) - of the 23 lakes in Rwanda Lake Kivu is the largest at 2699sqm, it acts as the natural border between Congo and Rwanda, and is the highest in Africa at 1459m above sea level.
Moves are afoot to tap the vast wealth of methane gas reserves that lie beneath the deep lake that has an unnatural emerald green mystery to it. If tapped the story goes the resource could power the entire US for a month!
The gas from Kivu could easily provide electric power for much of Rwanda, and allow it to revive its devastated forests.
The Lake has vast quantities of three dissolved gases
1) Carbon dioxide
2) Hydrogen sulphide and
3) Methane.
Carbon dioxide and the hydrogegaseshide gasses mainly come from volcanic activity, while methane comes from lake bed bacteria.
The idea is to tap the methane and burn it to produce electricity. A gas reserve that experts believe could supply the country's electricity needs for 400 years.
Dont get too excited about investing in that guest house on the shore just yet however! (But if you are interested speak to me!) One fear is that unless the methane is able to be tapped, risk of a massive gas explosion potentially killing people who live near the lake does exist.
The new Scientist claims there is precedent. In 1986, Lake Nyos, Cameroon released a cloud of carbon dioxide that had been building up below the surface resulting in the suffocating of more than a thousand people.
Relax! Swimming and water sport are completely safe on the lake and thanks to the methane content Kivu is croc free and can only support a small fish called Izambazo. A welcome companion to the evening Mutzig (local beer) while overlooking the shores of the distant Congo.
MJM/Rwanda
Back in Kigali 2006/04/16
