Saturday 12th March

Isabelle came round this morning for some English and a bit of pampering. Karyn did her nails and I kept her well fed with biscuits and juice. Funnily enough, the Kinyarwanda for nails and hunger is the same word, inzara. Bet you didn't know that.

Adventure!!! This afternoon we went to visit our friend Sincere in Nyamata. Its an hour journey on the bus, so we decided to go to Simba to get some padkos. Oh my word, best pastry in the world! And the scenery on the way was just stunning! I cannot convey to you what a beautiful country Rwanda is. I walk around every day and wish you could see what I’m seeing. There's nothing like it.

Anyway we get there and we must have been the only bazungu for miles. Everyone was staring at us, and Sincerce went as far as to describe our presence there as a miracle. I wouldn't go that far myself, but you get the idea.

Sincere showed us around his school and we took his headmaster out for a drink.

Then we decided to visit a nearby genocide memorial. It was challenging to be honest. You walk through the blood-stained, grenade-shattered church filled with the clothes of the thousands of victims killed on site. Then you see the mass graves. I’d seen mass graves before but I’d never been inside one until today. You descend into the unlit grave and walk along a narrow corridor, no wider than 70cm across. Towering above and below you are wooden coffins, each filled with 20 skeletons. The air is musky and the atmosphere tense. The next grave is even more harrowing, filled 12ft high with skulls and femur bones.