Hi all. Thanks for all the notes you’ve left, although I can’t work out who Ntwari is!?!? I have spent the last week living in a grass hut on the shores of Lake Kivu. There is a peninsula that is used by many of the missionaries in the region for one week per year, and they all get together for a holiday. This year it was dad’s turn to organise it, so we arrived 3 days before it all began, arriving on the Thursday 27th.
For a number of years now I had thought that this peninsula would be a lovely place to propose to my girlfriend Angela. And since Christmas, when we decided to visit Rwanda I had been planning to propose this summer. I had talked it over with my brother Nick and my parents and decided that this would be a good time to do it. Especially since Ange has got a job in Cardiff for the next two years and I have recently got a full time job. So on Friday (everyone else was arriving on the Saturday) at 4:30 I asked Ange whether she wanted to go for a walk down to the beach before it got dark. So walked down to the beach and I sat down with her on the rocks. In front of us the lake was spread out, calm and dark blue in the afternoon light. In the distance the occasional dugout canoe was moving slowly across the water. To our left the afternoon sun painted a sparkling golden path over the water towards us.
So we sat down and chatted for a couple of minutes while I tried to work out exactly how to say this without sounding cheesy or corny. However to my horror as I was just about to ask the big question Angela suddenly started complaining about “The beasties” (a couple of flies which had decided to join us), took off her shoe and began to try and hit them. Was my potential fiancee aware of my plans and trying to stop me before I began, or just mad? Well, after a couple of minutes she sat back down and I was able to continue.
So I asked her whether she loved me and she said yes. And so I said, in a very shaky voice “Will you marry me”. To which she replied “Yes”. We then watched a very red sun sink behind the hills.
Over the next couple of days the other people began to arrive and set up camp. Whilst there you can live in a small cottage, a grass hut or a tent. We chose the grass hut. Unfortunately while there we had a tremendous thunder storm come in off the lake one night. For about four hours we had thunder, lightning and about four inches worth of tropical rain. My hut was the first to suffer because it was built on a slight slope and the water began to go down the hill and into my hut. So I went across to see how Ange was doing, dodging the holes in the tarpaulin through which water was beginning to pour. Her hut, being on level ground was doing better than mine, but water was beginning to come through the roof. We gathered up our sleeping bags and pillows, wrapped ourselves in our waterproofs and made a sprint for the car. Which was where we spent the next couple of hours until the rain abated and we were able to go back to our slightly soggy huts.
Anyone who has seen a tropical rain storm will know what I mean here. The first signs of rain were the increase in wind as the storm approached and the gradual darkening of the sky as the clouds began to merge into a dark mass. Every thunder clap seemed to increase in volume as the storm approached and was preceded by lightning which lit the sky from horizon to horizon.
However most of the week went really well. We had lovely hot days and and cool nights. It was also really fun to meet up with people that I hadn’t seen for over 13 years and find that we all got on really well. I also had to re-learn how to light a charcoal fire with only grass and twigs and a soggy box of matches. Luckily this year nobody saw any snakes and the week passed without incident. We got back to Kigali last night.
