2nd to 19th of February, 2018.
Alberto Benvenuti. I could let this chapter just like this and would be enough. Should be. It is like try to define the Brazilian Portuguese world ‘saudade’. It is quite difficult. I will do my best.
Alberto is an Italian guy who is living in Musanze for the last twelve years. He came in here as an NGO volunteer and was staying and staying. After own, work and help different places, for the last two years he is running this guest house called La Locanda.
Our talk it last around fifteen minutes and it is enough to arrange everything. I would stay in one bedroom for the weekend and move it for a Cottage in the Sunday. There I would be able to cook and have my own place for the next two weeks. When he shows me the two places, I could not believed. It was that real? I came to Musanze with the intention of staying in a village school, probably in very simple / local installations and now I was front of this amazing and beautiful place, which looked for me as a fist class place. Alberto keeps showing me the whole place so naturally, that he probably did not understand why I was so surprised. About the work, we decide that until the end of the weekend, he would figure out in how I could help him. I agree in moving there that same night.
Back in Saidi’s house I wait for him for a while. He is a little sad that I am moving that same night but of course he is also happy and decide to escort me there.
When we are arriving, I group of tourists are also going there. Amon then, Michael.
At the living room, something around twelve people are comfortably sitting in the couch, chatting happily. Me and Saidi are invited to join them for Michael. He makes a quickly introduction of myself and I start to talk with the gentleman just beside me. After a few minutes, Saidi decides to leave and I stay with them.
That night the dinner it is pizza! And I keep not believing. I even order a beer! First time I drink the Mützig. My pizza it is mushroom flavor. Delicious! It is so good that I could eat two! Everybody remain sat, eating and talking without not care about anything. The guy who I was talking. Stephen, it is nice and funny. We are also talking with a nice girl called Susan. At some point I notice that most of them are here for work or business.
Everybody starts to leave around nine o’clock but what keep me in there it is Jeff playing the guitar. But at some point I have to go to sleep and prepare myself for the next day.
Next morning: breakfast. Fruits, mushroom, eggs, toast and a big Italian coffee. I am in paradise! Everyone who works over here is really nice: The cooks and the waiters Kevin and Kevin two, Theo, Platine, the sweet manager Michellin and all the housekeepers and gatekeepers too. But I have to say Kevin it is the closer one to me.
Stephen is leaving that morning and it is so cute of him asking me if he could give me a hug. I feel sad that he has to leave already.
At some point, me and Alberto sit to talk about my help. But first let’s talk more about him. He has a Nursery School, called L’Arc-en-ciel, which he is the founder and supporter of ten (with uniform, food, shoes and school materials) of the thirty four children they help. They keep looking for donors and children supporters, so they will be able to accept more kids. In the past, he helped a Centre to street kids, owned by a friend of him. When the Centre had to be closed, he took care, by himself, of three of the boys. Everything the boys needed, was supported by him. They were now in different boarding schools. I have the opportunity to meet two of them: wonderful smart kids, who want to prove their value and have stamped in them the mark of the street life. Now, the guest house is going well. Not just because it is a nice and peaceful place, but because Alberto is a great person who naturally attract friends and other good people so they are always talking about his place and suggesting to other friends so at the end it is a big ‘chain of the good’.
We agree that I could help writing a document about the school, which they would send to possible donors. To do that, I would go to the school Monday morning with him what would allow me also take some new pictures. I would also help to find the correct doors for the few keys they have around it. Sounds funny, right? The last thing would be take pictures of the place to put in the website. At the beginning it was just that. And if he figure out something else, he would tell me. Alberto also gives me some pocket money that I supposed to use to buy fresh food since the grains, like rice and pasta, and the drinks, like tea, milk and coffee, he would bring it. At the end, when I went to the cottage next day, there was a lot of fruits and vegetables.
(below are photograhs of a wonderful group performing local dances for our guests)
We go to the school as planed. It is a nice place which just need a little bit more of infrastructure. Grace, the director and left hand of Alberto (yeah, I do not agree with the term “right hand”, is prejudice) is a very kind woman and we talk a lot. After, while I am taking some pictures, I have some time with the kids. Nice and lovely ones. I am helping in the class of the smallest ones and Grace invites me to have lunch with them. During lunch time a big rain starts and I get stuck. Around two o’clock, somebody came to pick up Grace and she offers me a lift back.
As soon as I could I write the document and prepare the pictures to send to Alberto. The pictures should wait until he could redecorated a little the bedrooms. And about the keys I should wait until we have a free guests day.
Middle time, I talk with the incredible couple Rita and Jeff. They are from Canada and even not knowing anything about them, just looking the way they treat each other, you would love them. Alberto told them about my travel plan, so we just start to talk. Their story is lovely: they are now retired and are using their time to do an also kind of volunteer work, helping the families to create a sustainable way of farming. There is no money involved and their work is to put the hand on the shit. Jeff plays guitar and both drink wine and beers everyday. They look as they are still in love as they just met and look great together. Both so involved in what is going on in each country and in the world. Rita sounds so lovely when we talk about my travel and she tell me to be concerned. Jeff has an amazing speech about the money and how we would be better if the monetary system was gone. I am so relieve to hear that someone intelligent and with so much experience talks about the same idea as me. One day I heard them in a video call with the family back home, a birthday party, and they sounded lovely. I hope when I hit Canada they will be around so I can pass to say ‘hi’. If everything goes well, I already have four friends to visit in there.
After I pack some natural soaps which Alberto had bought some time ago and put them to sell, Rita and Jeff give me another idea to help Alberto: the living room bathroom it is not decorated at all. It needs not only decoration but more light and some fresh smell. What started just with the bathroom, became a whole place redecoration. The living room itself, the cottage and the other bedrooms. Alberto has so many nice pictures and we ask to the carpenter to make some special frames, which I would paint, and we would redecorate Roma bedroom and the living room. I am so exciting working with decoration again, that I can almost not stop. If it is not for Alberto taking me for some coffee in town or having dinner out, I would stay all the time working.
For the bathroom I repaint the mirror with also some Imigongo; I paint some old vases and fill with dried sticks to put in a small window; I paint an old frame and use parts of stick to create a small dry tree as “picture”; a vase and a shell holder, new painted, are decorating the sink; and of course the whole place it was filled with pieces of art about Africa. In the cottage I also used Africa arts and a Indian rug in the wall. I paint some furniture and the wardrobe and also some parts of the bathroom. I use one old window as frame for some bamboos and nature leaves and flowers from Africa, both dried and with a touch of gold tint, and another one to write “Coffee, Tea and Milk” with some seeds and put on the kitchen. Also in the kitchen I hung some wine bottles from the celling and beside I wrote a big “Bon Appetit!”. For last, I pant with different colors and decorated with gold lines, six old mugs and hung in the cupboard.
So I am happy to be able to help Alberto and doing something that I really like; I am meeting some great people all the time; I am having great meals or cooking something that I like; I a having coffee every morning, beer and wine often and tea every night before go to sleep. Alberto even arranges a deal with two travel agencies to bring me with them for free to take pictures and then promote both of investments. I go to a beekeeping plus a small hiking and a cannon trip. And even in those two days, just for the morning and lunch time, while out, I missed him. He always makes me laugh.
The two trips I go to it I did with a nice family from California, U.S. They are also travelling around the world: Audrey, Brian, Colin and Decker (twelve and nine years old) would spend over an year in the road visiting something around thirty countries. Really cool. The boys do not look spoiled for me at all, by the opposite, really nice, smart and adorable kids.
I went to the school another day, this time alone. I got lost. I walk so much more than I needed. So stupid. I am trying to get in there at eight o’clock but just arrived passed nine. With the help of my great friend Saidi, I find the place and he is even giving me a lift to there. I wish I could have helped more Grace and the school. If I had more time…
The frames and the living room look great! Alberto is so creative and full of ideas that as me he is putting all together at the same time. I am so happy every time he makes me a complement and even more when he mention he would like to leave me in there when he leaves for some holidays in Italy.
On my last day we go out for a walk in the afternoon. Me, Alberto and John. We visit Theo (one of our cooks, who Alberto know and has helped since 2009) and have some beer and food in there; we try to visit Grace but unfortunately they are not at home and then we come back. I am invited to eat out for dinner. I accept. We go to the restaurant I think it is very beautiful from outside and then I figure out it is also amazing inside. I have a delicious Tiramissu for desert.
I have to say goodbye that same night. The three of us would leave very early next morning: Alberto and John to Kigali and I to the boarder.
The hug I receive from Alberto it is the best one in a long time.
Next morning I decide to have my breakfast over there while I take some road directions. I left kind of sad because I wanted to stay more and I also wanted to do more and had helped Alberto to finished everything. I could not.
I had just passed Saidi’s house when somebody pick me up and drive me until the boarder. I am happy because I have already left Rwanda so probably I would hit Kampala that same afternoon. I was so wrong…
