The Story of theIby’Iwacu Cultural Village

Iby’Iwacu Cultural Village convinced the ex-poachers to turn their back on poaching and instead perform for visitors and earn a living through their amazing traditional performances that mainly portray the Rwandan ancient rituals ranging from food preparation, traditional marriage rituals and many more. 

Visiting the village you can discover the traditional house of a local king, watch an authentic medicine man prepare herbal mixtures, try your hand at bow and arrow shooting, or enjoy cultural dances and drumming performed by people from the local area.

This guided walk of the village takes around an hour and you can freely take photographs and enjoy the great humor of the local people as you participate in their singing and traditional dancing activities.

While at the village, you will be impressed by how these former poachers are not the same people that are entire proud and feels part of gorilla tourism because they benefit directly from the tourism revenues. 

The conservation initiatives by the cultural village are aimed at providing a sustainable livelihood for the community members so that their lives are improved and they, in turn, commit to conserving the endangered mountain gorillas.

If you have enough time you might as well have an opportunity to interact with these locals and or visit their homes and experiences life in their Rwandan homes. There is no better way to understand and learn about a country than interacting with its people.

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