Maison St Benoit is a small

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

nunnery in Kigufi,

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

Location

Kigufi is a village in

, in central

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, adjacent to

Lake Kivu Lake Kivu is one of the African Great Lakes. It lies on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and is in the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift. Lake Kivu empties into the Ruzizi River, which ...

, one of the great

Rift Valley lakes The Rift Valley lakes are a series of lakes in the East African Rift valley that runs through eastern Africa from Ethiopia in the north to Malawi in the south, and includes the African Great Lakes in the south. These include some of the world's ...

. Kigufi is situated in the Western Province of Rwanda, in the

Rubavu Rubavu District is one of the seven districts of the country district (''akarere'') in Western Province, Rwanda. Its capital is Gisenyi, It has a large beach resort and border city. It has a total surface area of 388.3 Km2. Geography The distri ...

District, in the Nyamyumba Section, in the Kiraga Cell. It is located at the North end of Lake Kivu on one of a number of small promontories just south of Rubavu, the nearest significant town. This places the village close to

Goma Goma is the capital of North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located on the northern shore of Lake Kivu, next to the Rwandan city of Gisenyi. The lake and the two cities are in the Albertine Rift, the weste ...

, at the border with the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

History

During colonial times a British man named Jack Mat Wilson Poelaert established the premises and constructed the building that comprises the main facility for the Nunnery.Correspondence with Sister Beata of the Maison St Benoit Benedictine Nunnery, 2019-07-24 He laid out gardens that include a range of good trees and have led to current descriptions of the Nunnery as "paradisaical green lakeshore grounds that support plenty of colourful birds and also offer good swimming".Briggs, P., 2018
Rwanda with Eastern Congo
Chalfont Saint Peter: Bradt Travel Guides Poelaert gave the property to the Benedictine order in December 1970.

The Nunnery today

Nowadays the Nuns of Saint Benedict live there praying and working as advised by Saint Benedict, who said: ''Ora et Labora''. They operate a guest house with 30 rooms that make it "one of the best-value and most attractive places to stay in the Rubavu area". Sister Beata, one of the five nuns presently running the guest house, explains: "Nuns like to have visitors, to receive them is not a business it is a part of the mission. They want you to feel at home". Visitors indicate that the sunset is a joy to behold and one feels a sense of peace once you reach Kagufi.Google map reviews o
Benedict Nunnery
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References

{{Subject bar , portal1= Africa , portal2= Catholicism Benedictine nunneries Buildings and structures in Rwanda