Good vibes, smart people, a lot of people to offer you different types of services is what you notice first when you get to the public beach of lake Kivu in Rubavu district.
You find different people playing beach volleyball, others posing for pictures, people in green jackets approaching you for boat tours and others in Kaki jackets for taking you pictures, all in exchange of a small fee for the services.
A range of different people provide such kind of services to people visiting, who are mainly from Kigali and foreigners coming for vacations in the cool breeze of Kivu.
Niyomugabo Philemon, a 17 years old from Rubavu provides the boat tours on the private beach.
Niyomugabo only works for two days a week, only weekends because he is an automobile mechanics student at Stella Matis in Rubavu.
”We work in cooperatives here. Everyone in a green jacket offers boat tours services, and the cooperative takes 10% of the fees they charge customers, which they share with members of the cooperative after a period of a year.” Niyomugabo told Afri Business News.
“In this period after festive seasons, you only get what God provides. Some days you even go back home without working for the whole day because visitors are very few.” Niyomugabo added.
Ndagijimana Julien has been providing boat services at Lake Kivu in Rubavu.
”Summer is mostly the best time for our services. I can easily make 70,000 to 100,000 frw daily, but now things are hard, when you get money to eat that day you praise the Lord.”, Ndagijimana said.
To join COBATLAKI (Cooperative de bateaux Touristique au Lac Kivu), the cooperative in which boat sailors work, a member pays up to 300,000 frw entry fees, and the cooperative takes 10% of their income.
COBATLAKI was established two years ago, in a way to regularise and stabilise the boat tourism business, and make it easier for tourists who could have problems with the guides.
Rubavu is one of the cities with most tourists in Rwanda, where people come to visit lake Kivu, amashyuza and beautiful resorts where people come for calm and rest.
