doing Geology with a gospel choir singing in the background!

November 23rd

A lie in this morning because we’re all tired. So a leisurely breakfast, and an opportunity to take more photos in the warm early morning sunshine. Outside our dining room there’s a gospel choir rehearsing their moves and being filmed; I think it must be a promotional video. The choir come from Ruhengeri and there are plenty of them – at least twenty five singers all in matching green tops and white trousers. Their singing is pretty good, too, but when I go outside to watch them I discover they’re miming to a tape, presumably one which they have already recorded.

We sit on the terrace at Kinigi with Karisimbi and Vishoke looming behind us and I do an hour long summary of everything I can remember on the geology of this part of Rwanda – the volcanoes, their effect on Kivu and Rwanda’s river systems; the petrology of the lava and the economic aspects of the volcanics. Even if I say so myself, these kids are leaving this place pretty well clued up on what’s going on, and there will be few other Rwandans who know as much in as much depth as these teenagers.

All good things come to an end, and we leave Kinigi regretfully because it’s such a nice place. Kersti has managed the budget supremely well and we are on the way home with a substantial cash reserve left in her purse!

This means that when we reach the “singing toilets” stop at Base we can buy everyone a cold drink; it’s getting noticeably hotter as we approach Kigali and it’s no less than 32 degrees as we enter the city.

Walt’s wife has made us a huge Tupperware box of cookies and these are steadily munched as we descend past the Nyaborongo valley on one side, and the deep gulleys of the mountains on the approach to the capital.

With the children safely off with their parents Kersti and I go to her house and crash out to doze for a couple of hours. Paula has texted to invite us to a do in town this evening, and we think it’ll make a nice way to end our weekend. (Nick is away in Kampala on a short business trip).

Unfortunately things go awry as the day wears on, and we don’t make it to Paula’s do. But the trip has been a great success, and we’ve both come back uplifted by the scenery and the sense of having achieved something worthwhile.