saturday

we now really are the only guests in the hotel as no one stays here for the week end apparently, the staff outnumber us by about 8;1 and in spite of wearing Miss World type sashes saying customer service they are not big on it! It is not possible to get cold milk at all as they boil it from the cow and never cool it but its so sweet I am not thinking of tea as tea and then I'm not disappointed , its a sort of warm flavoured milk.
Did I mention I have not seen anyone smoking ? Apparently it is only done in the privacy of ones home so as not to upset anyone else, there is this pervading fear of not upssetting anyone else and being forgiving they say its the only way they can live together post genocide
This morning we took a 40 min taxi ride to the hospice of Pope Jean Paul 2nd, theres a very large painting of him in the chapel. Apparently they have to do a lot of trainig of the priests to be spiritual in their counselling and not religious. Its a beautiful place and I think the nuns must have had great fun choosing all different bedding and decore , it reminded me of sister margeretta and her midnight blue ceiling that she loved!
the building is absolutely state of the art from kitchen to family dining area to garden, all provided for by a wealthy German doctor. Dr Christian who is the country lead and the government champion of pall care was very welcoming and asked me to do a ward round with him to teach him things ( he has had a year in USA doing a pall care cert !!) Any way all went well and Ruth is going to help him get the bursary for 2 weeks at St Christophers and maybe he could combine it with a trip to stay with us and visit Mary Stevens
We had soup with garlic bread at lunch and at there was at least a garlic bulb (not clove!!) between 2 slices of toast , but as we said not planning on kissing anyone !
This afternoon we went for a walk, we came across the local market it was great fun , vegetables and second hand clothes , ex  european charity shops, we then thought we would take a short cut and had to be escorted out of an area by a guard , we ended up in some sort of hostel for men , good job we had had garlic!!