out and about

Lon had Thursday and Friday off for Assumption day, so we decided to leave the big city and head out of town.

On Thursday we went to Nyanza, to see a reproduction of the Kings hut, and the last Kings last palace, and his new palace which has been turned into a modern art museum

as we didn't retain all the information our lovely guide passed on the details are here

http://www.museum.gov.rw/2_museums/nyanza/living_history/pages_html/page_1.htm
http://www.museum.gov.rw/2_museums/nyanza/old_palace/rukari_now_open.htm
http://www.museum.gov.rw/2_museums/nyanza/art_palace/page_art_1.htm

Reproduction of the last traditional Kings palace

internal walls

spectacular roof
Traditional milk storage vessels

shoes had to be taken off to visit the Kings residence, and thoughtfully provided sandals put on...

The modern art museum was in a beautiful setting (currently surrounded by scaffolding as they are repainting), but you can see better art at several of the local restaurants or galleries in Kigali - we felt a bit like parents at a school exhibition - its the little touches like the info about the paintings being printed out, cut out wonky and then glued to the wall the add to the experience - oh and the curator dogging our every step..

on Friday afternoon we took a long and meandering drive along a dirt road which follows a river just outside Kigali.


We passed through villages, some with specialities such as stones - there are people sitting with a pickaxe type tool smashing big rocks to make little stones, which are then picked up by trucks for the building trade


it was also sugarcane harvest time

it was interesting to see how the river changed size so often, sometimes a broad wide river, and at other times only a clear stream- the people who choose to make their livelihoods here are taking a gamble always that they don't get their entire crops flooded out (balanced against the land being fertile and easy to irrigate)





scary looking bridge which we made over succesfullythe road deteriorated somewhat, and it was after four....
so we had to turn round (and of course cross the same bridge)

I think its important that we regularly get out of town, and break the rhythm of our very comfortable lives where the fact that the shop has no plain yoghurt for the second week running constitutes a major annoyance. It's easy to forget the beauty and the poverty that are only a few kilometers away...