This is their story : The early morning email is not usually a source of excitement but in Rwanda we have learnt to expect anything and there is little that comes as a surprise any more.

On this occasion, a message from the British High Commission hinted at an unlikely invitation to a garden party before, on opening, it revealed something a little less pleasant.

We were informed in serious tones that another grenade had exploded the previous evening, as it happened, near a restaurant where we had been eating.

We had been out with friends and had been leaving for home around the time of the explosion but were unaware of anything unusual.

The High Commission wouldn't trouble itself sending out emails without good reason but this one was puzzling nevertheless.

One of our friends later said he thought he had heard something, but he made no comment at the time.

One aspect of life here in Kigali which takes some getting used to is the air of normality that is felt everywhere despite the all too apparent evidence about that not all is well.

Another month, another grenade.

Fortunately this time there were no fatalities although some people were reportedly detained in hospital overnight.

We counted ourselves lucky.

As Rwanda approaches April and the beginning of the annual genocide commemorations, Kigali takes on an air of increased tension that is almost palpable.

Around this period last year a serious of explosions in the city marked the build-up to two weeks of public events.

This will be the 17th anniversary and from our conversations with people we know, the pain hardly seems to have diminished.

To an outsider, the genocide is like a raw wound, continually worried at so that it doesn't heal.

The genocide commemorations might be compared to Armistice Day but there is a difference which is more than simply the distance in time between the events being remembered.

It would be easy to think that the genocide commemorations are as much about perpetuating a collective sore as remembering a tragedy, the memory of which recedes further into the distance as each year passes.

A lot of effort in Rwanda is spent on a process of peace and reconciliation.

This is valuable work and the projects which are involved can tell heart-rending stories of individuals overcoming mutual distrust to find forgiveness and healing.

Yet there is a sense that these stories are the exception rather than the rule.

The military patrols, the armed police and the grenades tell a different story.

There may be peace, but there is always a nagging doubt that reconciliation has yet to establish itself.

It is perhaps more at this time of year than any other that articles appear in the international press trawling over the events of 1994.

In a recent essay for the London Review of Books, Steven W Smith, a journalist who has covered Africa for two decades, raises issues which haunt the international conscience yet.

Even 17 years on, there are unanswered questions surrounding the genocide and events over the years, even until recent times.

There is a sense that until these issues are put to rest, peace and reconciliation will always be something of a mirage in the distance.

While Rwanda follows its own path to peace, other parts of Africa are moving in the opposite direction.

In the far north, Libya is the latest on a growing list of countries facing uprisings by their peoples.

The repercussions of this one seem to be rippling farther southward than the others.

In a recent article in the East African newspaper, the potential implications of a collapse of Colonel Gaddafi's regime sounded alarm bells across this part of the world.

It seems that the Gaddafi family or the Libyan government - it isn't clear which - have been investing oil revenues across much of Africa, including Rwanda.

Should the Tripoli regime collapse and the flow of funds dry up, a number of large companies are likely to suffer with potentially serious economic repercussions.

One project to build an oil pipeline into Uganda and then on to Rwanda is well behind schedule and estimated costs have almost quadrupled since the contract was awarded in 2007.

Nearer to Kigali, a Libyan investment fund owns one of the Rwandan mobile telephone operators, Rwandatel.

It is perhaps no coincidence that the company has recently been served with a second warning by the utilities regulator and threatened with having its licence removed if it doesn't improve its service.

Some here might say that is no bad thing but the demise of Rwandatel will only add pressure to the two other frustratingly slow networks available.

In the meanwhile, fuel is brought in by tanker at a cost reflected in European level pump prices.

So as Rwandan life turns to a period of national commemoration, we will remember with the people around us and hope that in whatever way, the process of peace and reconciliation can be taken forward to a brighter future without troops or grenades.