Rwanda - Butare

View of Butare main street. Just look at all those intellectuals.
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Our last stop in Rwanda before heading back to Uganda was tobe Butare, apparently the intellectual capital of the country. We seem to have an uncanny ability to adapt ourselves very quickly to fit the ethos of the place we are visiting and sure enough, on arriving in Butare we geared down to the lifestyle so typical of many of the world's intellectual hubs - sleeping in till 11am, eating cheese and ham toasties and drinking lots of cheap beer.

We had come here ostensibly to visit the chimpanzees in the nearby rainforest as we didn't feel we had had enough of watching primates look thoroughly miserable in the pouring rain. Even this plan was thwarted however as, believe it or not, it was even too wet in the rainforest for us to visit. Instead we took to roaming around the town looking for souvenirs and trying to look intelligent - not easy after 4 X 50p beers (750cl each!).

Students again!

Paddy fields on way back from Butare
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We did manage to visit the local museum, which turned out to be pretty fascinating. Well it was in our minds anyway - there had been yet another of the frequent power cuts and we couldn't really see many of the exhibits. Outside, where we could see, was a working part of the museum where young people learn skills such as basket weaving, metal work and pottery. All of the kids, we were told, suffered from some sort of trauma, mostly as a result of what they witnessed during the genocide when they would have only been infants. All their products are sold locally and the project was yet another reminder of how this country is learning to heal and move forward.