I've been putting off this post for a while now.. I really don't know how to describe the emotions this day brought about within me, and how to explain what I saw and experienced. Here goes.
We got up early and happily checked out of the hotel, knowing that the night that lay ahead would be much more comfortable. After realizing we really actually had no clue where we were going or how we were getting there, we headed downtown to try and find someone to point us in the right direction. Luckily we found just that!
A man at a travel agency told us the names of the memorials, two out of town and one in town, that we wanted to see. He said we could rent a car for 30,000 Francs, or about $60 USD, or take a taxi for a smaller fraction of the price. We knew we could do it cheaper. After all, sisi ni waafrika. We are African!
Really unconfident in the directions and other information we'd been given, we figured we'd settle it once and for all and went to an internet cafe to research what we should've done the day before. In just 10 or so minutes, we found out that yep we'd been given the right info all along. The people at the cafe were more than helpful and pointed us to the local bus/dala dala station where we could find a bus to take us first to Nyamata, which was about 35 km outside of Kigali. We got the the station and payed 600 Francs (just over a dollar!!!) to go all the way to Nyamata. We were stoked. About an hour or so later we arrived in what we figured was the right town.
Quick (and extremely limited) background to the Rwandan genocide. The Belgians colonized Rwanda and divided the people into two main races, the Hutu's and the Tutsi's. They were divided on physical characteristics, the Hutu's (I think) having lighter skin and smaller noses.. the Tutsi's were darker and had wider noses. This alone I find incomprehensible. When the Belgians were there, they preferred the services of one of the races, I can't remember which. When they left, they left a different one in charge (I think this is close to how it went). All hell broke loose as each race wanted revenge on each other for inequalities suffered over the past years. Genocide was eventually declared on the Tutsi's, who were dubbed cockroaches by the Hutu's.
The strangest part (or what I found strange at least..maybe not so much strange as intriguing) of Kigali was the fact that no one really seemed to know what we were talking about when we asked where the memorial's were. I'm still unsure of whether this should be accredited to the language barrier or the fact that the genocide is not talked about openly, and that the memorials were not put in place for the benefit of the locals. I'm thinking it's a mixture of both.
We were told to walk about five minutes down the highway and we'd find what we were looking for. Sure enough, we came across a weathered sign pointing the way to the church that had been turned into a memorial. Nothing could have prepared me for what I experienced next.
We up to the church and a local guide approached us and told us he would give us a tour. The second you walk into the church you are overwhelmed with the sight and don't know where to look first. Laid out on the pews were the bloody clothes of the 10,000 people who had been viciously murdered there. This was not a big building by any means, and I am still flabergasted and a little unsure of how exactly 10,000 people fit inside. We walked to the front of the church and were asked to observe the blood stains that still remain on the ceilings and walls. The door to the church had a gaping hole where a grenade had been thrown and bullet holes littered every available space on the floors, ceilings and walls.
We walked to the back of the church where on tarps lay the skulls and other bones of several hundred people. The guide explained that in this spot, children were thrown against the wall to be killed, and if not killed on impact were used to test the sharpness of the machetes. The more swings it took for the head to become severed, the duller the machete was said to be. I still don't know how I can even type words like these. How this actually happened and wasn't just some crude fable is beyond me, and I still haven't come to terms with what I saw.
Next, we were invited downstairs where some of the possessions of the victims had been preserved, along with more skulls. There was a single coffin which held one young woman who had had a stick shoved through her vagina and pushed as far up as it would go. Her coffin, we were told, represented the atrocious and cruel ways so many lost their lives.
We went outside and stood over two mass graves. They held the bones of over 45,000 people. I stepped down the first flight of stairs and attempted to enter the room with the skulls, but couldn't manage. I observed from the landing for a few minutes before I just found it to be too much. That many bones in one place is the most indescribable sight. I really don't know where to begin. What I have the most difficulty coming to terms with is the way two races who had lived in harmony for so long simply turned against each other. Hutu's and Tutsi's, neighbors and friends, suddenly mortal enemies. Doing anything to eliminate the other.
We were brought to two individual graves, one was of a nun who had tried to seek help for those who found refuge at the church. We stood in silence for a few minutes before signing the guestbook and leaving our humble donations and heading back down the dirt road. No one said much as we made our way back to the bus stop.
Emotional charged already, we were not in the mood to argue and have difficulties finding our way 5km or so up the road to the second memorial, Ntarama. No one seemed to know what we were talking about, we were flustered with the language barrier and we just didn't know what to do. I felt like a complete fool, sauntering into this country and expecting these people to understand our English. When we figured we had drawn enough attention to ourselves and were extremely unsuccessful in finding a way to Ntarama we just started walking up the road. Soon enough some bikes (yes, pedal bicycles) pulled up beside us and said they would take us to Ntarama for only 500 Francs. We agreed and all hopped on our own bike. Not only were we a little extra chubby from all the chapati we've been eating, but we also had all of our backpacks with us as we were in-between hotels. These little biker men were troopers and huffed it all the way up the hill and to the memorial. We were lucky to have found them as the memorial was waaaay out of the way and I really don't think we would have found it on our own.
When we got there, we saw a lot of the same mzungu's we had seen at the first memorial. All of them were there in their private cars. I have to admit I felt a little smug about the fact we did it cheaper and more 'local-ish'. You have to admit, it is kind of impressive.
These memorial was very similar to the first one we went to. Again, the church was presented in the same way, with the clothes and bones right in front of us. Seeing it for the second time didn't make it any easier. 5,000 people were murdered in this church.
Out back we were taken to a building that had previously been used as a Sunday School. The lady led us to the back and said "See the stain on the wall? That's from the babies that were thrown against it and killed."
We went into a hut behind the school and were told it used to be a kitchen. The bones of the people who were burned in it were still on the floor.
I don't know how, after all of this, we hopped back on the bicycles and went back into town. How is it right that we could just leave all of that behind? I felt like there is so much more I needed to do, needed to see, but really there wasn't. Something that traumatic doesn't seem like it should be able to just be walked away from. How were we expected to continue on with our day after walking through the death site of hundreds of thousands of people? Somehow we did.
We got on the bicycles.
Then on a bus.
And found our way to Hôtel Des Milles Collines, better known as Hotel Rwanda.
oh my...
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