Ibyiwacu Cultural Village

Ibyiwacu Cultural Village is located in the north province Musanze district around Parc National des Volcanoes in Nyabigoma at Kinigi in Rwanda.Your visit to Ibyiwacu cultural village gives you a chance to meet local people in their environment, taste their cultural and their traditional life styles which includes ways of living, activities and artefacts.

Visitors are warmly welcomed by the local people with their local special songs and cultural dances; they will also proudly present to their visits the different aspects of their traditional ways of living and beliefs and this could be the  only way you can get to know more about these people. It sounds and looks great when they see you  getting so close to them, having  an interaction with them  on their ways of living ,lifestyle ,culture and traditional beliefs and also involving yourself in their different activities the will be performing this real creates a good image .

Well as visitors are in Ibyiwacu local village, one of the places one can have a wider experience is IGITARAMO, where all visitors gather around the camp fire mostly during evening hours after the visitors have done gorilla tracking because they have nothing to do in the evening .Camping could be one of the best activities visitors enjoy after tiresome activities and they also entertain their visitors by using their local drums to sing and perform local dances to their visitors. Before the sunset, idles stories are always narrated by story tellers who are normally old Rwandese that gathers a group of people around the campfire including the visitors and they start narrating such stories.

Ibyiwacu is such a fantastic village with a variety  of cultural experiences to offers to the visitors and probably the best ways you can get to know about these people ,culture ,ways of living and taking part in their daily activities. Agricultural tourism is one of the biggest part with a wider experience, where visitors will join the local people when going to the agriculture fields to work, and they learn how to work, harvest and participate in ways of how they process some types of food like millet grinding using stones, carrying sweat potatoes and water on their heads, and attending lessons and participating in different ways of preparing local dishes. Visitor itineraries are personalised according to their interest and wishes. 

Activities at Ibyiwacu Cultural Village

There is community walk; this is guided by community members who direct visitors on different sites that are to be visited within the community. This walk offers a usual and memorable intuition into the everyday lives of the local communities. Visiting the kings palace is one of the most interesting activities which involves listening to the kings stories, the meanings of the different symbols that are used within the palace.in this place, you can be a king for a minute, hours or days if interested .you will be enthroned by village elder and you are given power to perfume and excise all the duties of the king during village ceremony. Enjoy the eight different types of dances that is to say, intore dance,drumming, ibyivugo, umuduri, ikembe, inigiri, inanga, ingoma, amakindere and akakenko. These different types of dances are performed by different groups of people that is to say  men,women,youth, young children and other local and traditional instruments.

Listening to traditional famous gorilla songs that are sung by Ngayabatema, who is commonly referred to as Kayuku. Involving in preparing local dishes and having a dinner with these local people, it’s also one of amazing activities that visitors who are interested in learning how local dishes are prepared. There is also visiting the traditional healer who teaches visitor’s and demonstrates to them the different types of traditional trees, shrubs, and learns about ways how they are being administered to patients. Visiting traditional clinics and pharmacies, the elderly and listen to their interesting stories of pre and post-colonial era. Visit the Batwa as they carrying out pottery making and take part in this activity. Touring the local schools is also one of the interesting activities where you will be warmly welcomed by students with their songs, attend their lesson and see how they are being taught and if you are a teacher you can as well offer them a lesson. Attending local banana brewery making and enjoy the taste of local natural beer. 

Code of Conduct

Make use of dust bin that are available and carry all non-degradable litters. When taking photographs, respect privacy and the community or you, may ask the guide or the community leader if its right and use restraint. Do not give empty bottles to children because it encourages them to keep on begging which habit is forbidden in the community. Donation to community is a more constructive way to help and only give to the community leader. Feel free to share your culture with us because we are more interested in you’re getting to know about us, therefore you’re free to share with us your ways of living, culture and many others. In case of anything that is a usual to you, be free to ask anybody or ask any of community leaders for better interpretation. We encouraged everyone to be patient, friendly and very sensitive in what activity that is to be performed or the ones you are to get involved in.