Gisakura tea plantaion

March 25th: Walking the dogs by myself for the first time on their new fancy leads, they're very well behaved and let me take in the view. In the distance is Lake Kivu.

I walk through the tea plantations that surround the forest reserve and pass lots of locals and Ugandan construction workers who are building a tourist lodge down the road. They find the dogs on strings hilarious.

Some little children from N & J's kid's club think I'm Nerissa and tag along for the walk. I end up letting them hold a dog each and they escort me back to the park headquarters.

Nyungwe National Park

Wed 25th March: Beautiful Nyungwe! Nerissa arranges for us to go on the pink trail at 8am with a tracker and a co-worker, to give me my first real taste of the rain forest.

The walk takes 3 hours and I start making notes and photgraphing backgrounds for the Nyungwe animation.

Meanwhile back at the lodge, I've been making myself at home in Jules' studio (Nerissa's spare room).

The road to Nyungwe

Tues 24th March: (from bottom to top) The 4hr journey from Kigali to Gisakura, the closest village to where N & J live (next to Nyungwe Forest Reserve). The guys in pink are prisoners, possibly doing time for their involvement in the genocide.

On the way, we stop at the Gatagara Pottery Cooperative where I buy all the random items you can see on the check out desk. Next we pop into the Tinnery and meet some craftsmen who show us how they make all the innovative items for sale. Yes, that is a microphone ornament made out of tin!

As we leave the tinnery and head into Nyungwe, the skies open as if to mark the start of the rainy season. The picture below is the bottom of N & J's garden!

Gisozi Genocide Memorial

This month marks the 15th Anniversary of the 1994 genocide. I went on my first (rainy) Sunday in Kigali to see the Memorial (built in 2004) where people are still being buried today. So far 250,000 out of an estimated 800,000 - 1,000,000 people are named and buried here.

I found the museum to be very well put together. It wasn't as graphic as I was expecting, though the facts it contains are extremely harrowing. It's a beautifully positioned tribute to the people who died and are still suffering today and also acts as a learning centre trying to prevent any future conflicts.

To be honest, I feel deeply ashamed to be from one of the 1st world nations that could have intervened and saved 100's of 1000's of lives but chose to ignore what was going on. Due to the role the French government is believed to have played, French is no longer being taught in schools (they're reverting to English- which is more a sign of the times than an acceptance of the Brits and Americans who did nothing to help until it was too late) and no French embassy exists.