Last day in Bwindi

Wednesday, March 18, 2026

The dental team departed Bwindi in the morning after the daily hospital prayers. Scott, Mark and I waved them all good bye. Everyone seemed to have had a fulfilling experience. We certainly did.

As I had never spent time in the maternity, infant ICU or pediatric wards, and as they were full, Scott took me through the wards so I could see the children. It was amazing how tiny the premature newborns are. I got so intrigued that I took only one photo. We walked through other wards and observed that no patient was alone. Every patient had at least one family member with them as well as their own blankets. The whole scene is very social. People wander around at will with no one checking people in or out and no one concerned.

Adult wards full of patients and their families

While I was checking out the hospital with Scott, Mark took photos of Lavonne’s Garden. It is looking really good even with rain coming down in torrents.

While at it he captured a super picture near our lodge room of a L’Hoest’s monkey.

We spent most of the day hanging out in the lodge listening to intense thunder, lightening and rain. I hoped our dental team did not have the intense rain on their drive to Lake Mboro that we experienced at the hospital.

Scott came to our lodge to join us for dinner and then he insisted I go back to the hospital with him to see what the wards are like at night. The place was abuzz with people chatting away and tending to their sick family members. It wasn’t always clear who was the patient and who was family.

The rain stopped before we went to bed and did not recure during the night.

Wednesday, March 19, 2026

We were up before 6, packed and ready to go long before the appointed pick up time of 8am. So we had a leisurely breakfast and departed when our driver arrived at 7:40.

The road started out pleasant enough, but before 2 hours had elapsed we were tired of the mud and bumps and intermittent rain. About 3 hours into the drive, we encountered a fallen tree which we could not pass. No one of the cars who backed up behind us had any equipment and we were all reduced to waiting for nearby park attendants to show up and cut the tree.

We had waited an hour and a half and were grateful that they came. Another hour of dirt road and we finally reached pavement. After an hour of pavement we reached the border between Uganda and Rwanda. It took an hour to clear the car through customs. We sailed through. Back in the car the road was pleasant the rest of the trip to Kigali. The whole journey took 8 hours including the tree and border crossing and we were more than ready to be done.

We reached our Rwandan friend, Emmanuel Nkuranga and agreed on a time to meet for dinner. Some of you may remember that he painted the VW bug that is in our garden.

We had a lovely time with Emmanuel and his wife Lauren. They took us to a restaurant and art gallery they own called Choose Kigali. There are several rooms of various sizes on 3 floors that contain his art and a room on the ground floor that is used for dining. Behind the dining area was an open kitchen. Outdoors is a patio that overlooks the city. At night the city lights were delightful.

The conversation was very lively and the meal was an interesting presentation of pasta topped with tilapia. I completely forgot to take a photo and am very sorry about that. Hopefully we will see them again one day as they live a very active life and travel a great deal too. We had not seen them since 2018 when we were last in Kigali. This is the link to Emmanuel’s gallery: http://www.choosekigali.com.

Below are photos of downtown Kigali. It is a clean and pleasant city surrounded by mountains.