It didn't stop the gardeners from snipping.
The judges filed out to decide upon a new date and set of circumstances (Nkunda's appearance has been delayed since he was arrested in 2008) and the audience went outside.
A journalist shooed a gardener away for clearer shots of Nkunda's family and lawyer. With plenty of long grass beckoning, the gardener shuffled closer to his coworker and continued.
Suddenly, everybody (except the gardeners) rushed back into the courthouse, only to wait for another half-hour.
The verdict was announced, to a chuckling audience. The gardeners listened through the window.
The decision: Nkunda's French-speaking lawyer's translator is overqualified (as she is herself a lawyer) and would give the defense an unfair advantage. The prosecution wanted to delay for 60 days to find a new translator, but the judges compromised at 30.
The judges and audience left, the journalists gathered their soundbytes, and the gardeners returned to their knees.
Not everything in Rwanda delays so long. One hill over, downtown, genocide prisoners felled dozens of trees to make way for new developments. One hill beyond that, workers lined up for kilometres, 10 paces apart, laying down fibre-optic cables for a new era of high-speed Internet. And on the other side of that same hill, workers finalized the paved road, new this week, leading to Kigali's upper-class hospital.
But the prisoners aren't free, and the other work is too quick: where will those jobs be in a week's time?
The gardeners probably have a more stable position: they, at least, will work next month.