Breaking bread with the President

Otherwise, you are free to get out and hang on the fence to watch. And many people do.

It has been a long day, and so Kagame suggests we retire to the main house for tea. Jeannette and all their four kids are there.

Unsurprisingly, Jeanette is asked to round up the kids to greet the visitors — the old fashioned way. And they do.

Ivan is back home from West Point. He is very tall, and used to be wobbly, I learn.

It has toughened him up, and he is straight and vigorous. It is startling how tall he and his sister Angie are. Ivan is 6ft 7inches, standing a whole 5 inches above his father.

Kagame’s eyes glitter. He is a proud father, quite obviously. And he mellows even more.

There is no doubt that he has a very soft spot for Jeanette, who looks much too young for her age.

It is mostly small talk now; football, the party of young Rwanda professionals where he was guest of honour last night and left at 3am; irresponsible fathers; their all-stone house, his cows and crops, and some tit bits about other African and world leaders.

We eventually get up to leave, and it’s nearly 10pm Nairobi time. Again, the kids are rounded up to do the farewells.

I wait in the foyer with Jeanette and a senior Kagame aide, as the big man nips into his study for something.

Jeanette picks up a football that her boys left around, and actually balances and moves it about across both legs like Chelsea’s Michael Essien in the World Cup advert on DSTV. I ask her if she is a footballer. Not really, she replies, she is a volleyball woman.

Kagame reappears, and we walk out. Jeannette has stamped her environmental credentials all over the compound.

The trees blow in the night wind, and a cool breeze drifts over from the lake.

The kids are running about the house, gathering their things, because everyone will shortly be travelling back to Kigali.

My mind goes back to an interview I had late in the night 16 years ago shortly after the RPF had taken power.