I’m in Washington, D.C., where it looks and feels like winter, except for the ten gorgeous tulip magnolia trees blooming in a little park across from this Starbucks.
I’d give you a picture, but the camera of my Kindle, on which I’m rather laboriously typing, is not really doing them justice.
So, I thought I would show you a few more photos of the garden back in Kigali — set up for a recent event at our house: a reception and then a concert by the folk rock group Dawes, all on behalf of the U.N. Foundation and its program “Nothing but Nets.” (This is a diplomatic residence.)
In the first slides, you can see the terrace and the tops of the tents down on the lower lawn. Then, there are couple of pictures of the tents being set up. There is just enough grass so that they don’t need to put tent stakes in the flower beds. A final shot shows the reason for the tents: it poured rain during the concert.
Nothing but Nets is a global campaign to raise awareness and money for the fight against malaria. It began in 2006 when Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly challenged his readers to give $10 each to buy anti-malarial bed nets. To date, six million have been distributed in Africa with the $40 million raised.
The U.N. was represented locally that evening by UNHCR, its refugee agency. There are 55,000 refugees in Rwanda, mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo. They live in four camps, and Nothing but Nets has been distributing nets among them.
Dawes was terrific; you can hear a couple of their songs here and here. The group will soon be going on tour with Bob Dylan.
enclos*ure 
I’m curious. Do you get feedback on how you’ve brought the garden to new life?!
Diana, I’m so sorry for the delay in answering — we were on vacation and I found that the Kindle Fire is not ideal for blogging.
Visitors are often complimentary about the garden, but lately the best “feedback” has come from the birds; there are more and more of them as the shrubs fill out. And weaver birds have built probably 25 nests on one of our tall trees.
weaver birds nesting, was one of the reasons we chose THIS plot.
Mine are sharing the tree with a hawk, who has built a very big nest on one limb. I guess weaver birds are not that tasty.
oh the raptors and snakes will hunt South African weavers.