The Man Who Found Peace In A Busy Restaurant In The Heart Of Africa

Philip Opperman lives and works in a picture postcard. On the banks of a tranquil lake east of Rwanda, this South African farmer runs a popular restaurant bar and sells fresh fish. He came looking for peace but found so much more.

- RIDHIMA SHUKLA

ON YET ANOTHER RAINY DAY IN RWANDA, A TWO-hour drive 50km east of the capital of Kigali, and finally down a long dirt road – muddy in the rain – a charming village awaits.

A glistening lake appears from behind a wooden gate and as you take the descending steps towards it, from across the picket fence in the distance, a man in his late 50s is in a green yard with his back to us. There are birds and bees on the tall palm trees, and the dogs on the property lazily eye the new visitors entering this tropical haven.

It’s an ideal workplace for a man born and bred on a farm although far away in South Africa.

The son of a dairy farm owner, Philip Opperman grew up in Pretoria, South Africa’s capital city, during apartheid.

His life was about soccer, school, and long days helping out at the farm until he was inducted into the South African Defence Force in 1981 for a two-year compulsory stint, and his view of life changed, far from the pastoral pleasures of his father’s farm.

Now resident in his adopted home, Rwanda, Opperman tells FORBES AFRICA when we meet and as he unravels his journey from South Africa to this village in the hills: “I turned 18 in the army. It opened my eyes to what was going on in South Africa.”

After being relieved from the military, he went on to follow his family trade and pursued a degree in “animal agriculture” but life, yet again, had other plans.

He found himself working as a construction manager navigating some of the most unwelcoming parts of Africa.