The Kingly Well That Never Dries

A local pilgrim gets his dose of kingliness

Our discovery of the well that never dries up and its spiritual significance was some kind of side issue. In all the literature we had read and the lectures we had attended, nowhere had we come across the story of a magical well. Not even in the highly acclaimed Threatened Kingdom, The story of the mountain gorilla, a rather glossy coffee table book we had earlier received, compliments of our host.  In fact, we had only driven down here in Eugene’s SUV to be shown the lower entrance into the Muhanga Forest, where the traditional King of Rwanda is said to have spent his last night before taking office.


“We” is a bunch of us intrepid ad agency types, all foreign, crisscrossing the vast Rwandan district of Musanze, marvelling at the wonderful things that the International Gorilla Conservation Project (IGCP) have done with (and for) the communities in the gorilla conservation areas. Eugene is the mild mannered gentleman from IGCP handling the logistics of the trip and acting as translator/host. As we wait for the game ranger in charge of this entrance to the seemingly impenetrable forest, people keep coming down to some kind of hole in the ground at the edge of the forest, draw water in plastic containers of all sorts and disappear back into the village after staring curiously at us. If we paid more attention, we would notice the reverence with which they approach the simple task.

Speaking through our interpreter, the old ranger – when he finally turns up – tells us how so sacred to the nation of Rwandans this part of Muhanga forest was in the old days. “The new King would spend his last night here before being enthroned,” translated Eugene. “He would take that time of solitude to receive instructions from ancestral spirits believed to have lived here, and in the morning, he would take a bath in the magical water in that well,” he pauses, pointing a long index finger at the decrepit pit at which all those people continue to fetch little amounts of water…

“So that water has kingliness in it?” exclaims Dudu Thabede, our fearless leader from Jo’burg, SA, and starts to walk towards the well, “can we get some?” she adds, changing direction and heading towards the vehicle for discarded mineral water bottles.

 “Get me the biggest bottle,” jokes Sinty Zulu, “so me and these guys (he wryly eyes some of the scrawnier and more shabbily dressed people filing reverently to the open well) will be Kings tomorrow!” A  Zimbabwean, he is the next most foreign of us all and officially the office wag. Most things about Rwanda amaze him to bits; not least of them the ability of Rwandans or anyone to move that slowly. “So why doesn’t anyone bottle it and brand it and sell it?” he asks, suddenly thinking about branding in the middle of all this.

Yakub and I, the east africans awaiting the ranger

“Someone even tried to pipe it for distribution,” explains Eugene after some Kinyarwanda consultation with the old ranger. “But the well is said to have withheld its water. When the piped water project was scrapped, the water mysteriously came back.” 

Sinti and our writer pose with the local pilgrims.

Ugandan Yakub Ibrahim and I, the rest of the team, are fellow East Africans, and are trying not to sound too much like tourists as we crowd around the well, mingling with the regular pilgrims.

“She says it keeps her family free of common illnesses and promotes ubuzima – general wellbeing,” Eugene translates again.

“Not many people including Rwandans know the story of this well,” explains Eugene as we drive off, each clutching a bottleful of kingliness. “We hope that you guys will create communication that spreads the world.”

Dudu, fearless leader, with her share of the well

“We certainly will,” says Dudu, “especially after a daily morning sip of this kingly water.”

But as we drive back to Kigali the next morning, we can not help but think of how we are going to exist beyond the next day without the bottled magic from the kingly well that never dries up. This is because when we left our precious bottles in our rooms as we went for breakfast, the cleaning staff mistook our kingly water for old mineral water and replaced them with fresh, unopened ones!

©Lloyd Igane 2011; kreative@publicist.com