being tourists (as opposed to working tourists)

on thursday night we went out for farewell drinks for lindsey and I must say, there is not much of a difference between farewell drinks here and farewell drinks in brighton - except maybe the price. we had a good time and eventually left the bar at about 3am well hammered and all. luckily we now have guards at our gate who open the door for you so you don't have to fiddle with the key in the dark, etc. we also made it down the suicide ramp fine and passed out shortly after. nice lie in on friday morning - oh what bliss! after cups of tea on the terrace we unanimously decided to spend the day at the pool in the novotel - it was hot and sunny and we were tired from the night before. so off we went, got to the pool and had just settled in the deckchairs when it starts raining... mmh - never mind; let's go to the restaurant and have some iced tea and food whilst we wait for the rain to stop. it took its time, so we had coffee as well. but eventually the sun came back out and now we were in pole position to get the best spots at the pool - and we did. it was perfect - I am even getting close to having a tan line (and that after 2 days of sunbathing only - bye bye english legs!!) after the pool we went home and cooked ourselves a nice dinner and then settled down to watch films with cups of rooibos chai tea (thanks Ann - it's amazing!) and the remainder of booja booja (thanks Caro - needless to say they were out of this world!) - well, what can you want more than to spend your night snuggled up with tea and chocolate on the sofa watching shrek 2 laughing your head off with a good friend?

after a really good night's sleep we woke up the next day all fresh and full of beans - and we had the most productive day in kigali so far! after breakfast we set off to the genocide memorial. it is really well made and explains the history of rwanda before, during and after the genocide really well; powerful pictures and videos but it is not an intimidating place and you also don't walk out with a depression afterwards. the nice thing about it is that it's a memorial site where people have been buried and there is a room where people have hung up photos of their loved ones they lost, so it's a dynamic and personal place; not just a museum. In the upstairs bit there is also a whole section on other genocides of this world; I think it's really 'nice' to remind people that rwanda was not the only human catastrophe and that one would have hoped that they can serve as examples and reminders to never let something like this happen again. there was a saying in the museum which read something like: "when we said 'never again' did this apply only to some people and not others?" - good question! definitely going back to have a look at that upstairs section - we were too tired on saturday to take any more in.