As we walk around the centre we gradually take in the reality of what happened in Rwanda. In one room we are confronted with around 1500 photographs of people who were killed. The enormity of the tragedy hits when we realise it would take six or seven hundred of these rooms to accumulate all the photographs of the victims. Moving on we enter a dark room with clothing of victims hung around the walls. A lone child's sandal is a reminder of the brutality against the young as well as the old.
In another section we see the once-smiling faces of children who were killed. David, age 10, enjoyed making people laugh, and dreamed of becoming a doctor. His last words, before being tortured to death, were "UNAMIR will come for us". Ariane, age 4, enjoyed singing and dancing. She died after being stabbed in the eyes and head.
The head of the UN assistance mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), Roméo Dallaire, had said "Give me the means and I can do more." He had estimated that as few as 5000 troops with authority to enforce peace could stop the genocide. The words of Apollon Kabahizi, a genocide survivor, are justifiably accusatory: "When they said 'never again'after the Holocaust, was it meant for some people and not for others?" It is a sombre and humbling experience.
On Thursday we head into the centre of Kigali on a couple of motorbike taxis, and wander around town. Then we ask around and eventually find the depot for the bus to Nyamata, a town 30km from Kigali, where we are going to visit a memorial site in a church. We purchase our tickets for 600 Rwandan francs each (~AU$1.50), and jump on the crammed mini-bus. Whilst we wait some guys try to sell everything from sandals to perfume through the bus windows. Andrew asks one guy for the English language newspaper, and he soon returns asking for 1000 francs. He´s pointing to a price of 1000 on the paper, which Andrew points out to him is the price in Ugandan shillings. The Rwandan price is 300 francs, which is conveniently scratched off on this paper! We suggest we´ll pay 300 francs, he suggests 500, and the deal is done. Andrew thinks he´s outsmarted him until he realises the paper is over a week old! But it could have been worse - the next guy tries to sell us a newspaper from March 2008!
After the bus ride to Nyamata, the driver kindly drops us at the gates of the church. At this site, around 2,500 people were killed during the genocide of 1994, many as they tried to shelter inside the church. There are no fancy museum diplays or explanations here. The original steel doors to the church are still bent and twisted where the grenades of the army and Interhamwe militia blew them open, and as we step into the church we see rows of church benches with clothing piled high. These are the clothes worn or carried by the thousands of people killed here. A guide explains that the black stains on the walls and roof, yes the roof, are blood stains. It really is beyond our comprehension, but being here brings us a little closer to understanding what happened in this country. Behind the church are mass graves where the remains of around 40,000 victims are buried.
It's a macabre memorial, but it seems that the people here feel it should be left this way. It's understandable - this is the reality of what happened, this is where their mothers, sons, daughters, sisters, cousins were killed. Apparently another church has been built for the locals to use, but as we walk away from the memorial through the town we're reminded that the locals live with this reminder every day, along with many other unseen scars.
On Friday 31 October we head to the north of the country, near the border with Uganda, to visit another World Vision development project. It's a beautiful drive through the 'land of a thousand hills', and we see that practically every available bit of land is cultivated to provide food for this crowded country. The staff of the development project take us along rough mountain tracks, with children running along behind the 4WD, to the home of a lady who tells us of her experiences during and after the genocide. As we sit on wooden chairs in her mud hut she tells us of sending her eight children away for safety, and of fleeing the house when the killers came. Her husband was gone when she returned - only a pool of blood and some bullet holes remained. On the wall to the left of us we can still see the bullet hole where her husband was shot. It's a stark and shocking reminder. She tells us how she had to confront her grief through trauma counselling, and how she now helps others. She also asks us some questions, like whether we have any children. Then she asks whether hearing her story affects us. The tears in our eyes answer her question. We explain that in 1994 as children we remember seeing the news footage coming out of Rwanda and wondering why nothing was being done. Like so many others I'm sure she wonders if things would have been different if someone had had the guts to help.
The rest of the day is spent visiting other aspects of the project, including the farmer's co-op, and a school where we meet hundreds of sponsored children. They greet us and sing for us - as to them we represent their sponsors - and they crowd around us to shake our hands. Some of the children stroke Mariska's arms and hair, amazed and the white skin and blonde hair. They love to practice their English, and respond proudly when we ask their names. These children have so little, but their beautiful smiling faces are a joy. We leave reluctantly.On Saturday 1 November we head to the tailor where Mariska picks up a dress she's had made out of local fabric, and then go to the local market with our Aussie hosts, Jo and Michelle, to get some food. Then we make our way to a local boys' orphanage with another Aussie expat who takes food to them each week. The orphanage is in an unfinished factory building, and as we enter we hear the voices of the boys joining together for choir practice. It's an amazing sound. The orphanage started when some church members found the boys living in the abandoned factory some time after the genocide. The set up is stark - a few wooden benches, and some bare old bunks. The 'kitchen' is a small brick shelter out the back where the workers cook for 150 boys. They breed rabbits and ducks in the garden behind the orphanage for food. We leave some bags of fruit that we bought for the boys from the market, but it seems like such a small contribution.
We head off to church on Sunday morning with one of the World Vision staff we met earlier in the week, and he takes us to an English language service thankfully. After the sermon some of the members publically express their thanks to God for various things, and a reluctant goat is dragged to the front of the church by one couple as an expression of their gratitude.
Following church we meet up with Jo and Michelle, and make our way to a gacaca. A gacaca is a local community court which has been around for centuries, but the concept has been revived to deal with genocide perpetrators. Five or seven members of the local community sit on a panel as judges, and people are tried for murder and various other crimes before their community. The process is also designed to encourage community involvement and reconciliation. A contact we met earlier in the week has been able to organise our permits, and it's a fascinating experience to watch an appeal case of a man who had previously been convicted of being an accomplice to a murder at a roadblock, and then had the conviction overturned. At this second appeal, initiated by the community, some evidence is heard from both sides, and one witness is dragged off to prison for perjury as we watch. The identity of the victim is unknown, and witnesses to the alleged crime are non-existent or keeping quiet. We have to leave early, but we receive a phone call later informing us that the accused was found guilty of the accomplice to murder charge, and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
On Monday morning (3/11) we farewell Jo and Michelle, and do some final shopping in the town of Kigali. We feel very comfortable here now, and we'll miss the smiling locals, the rolling green hills, the moto-taxis, and the jokes at the expense of us mzungus. Rwanda is trying hard to move on from the tragedy of 1994, and with the assistance of plenty of aid (aka 'guilt money') from the West, development is rapid. The threat of old tensions rising again is ever-present although never mentioned, and apart from the personal scars there are constant references to the genocide in the news, on signs and buildings, everywhere. We've been fortunate to meet some people who have generously shared their experiences, and we will not soon forget our time here. It has been difficult to try to put these experiences into words here, but hopefully it gives some small picture of what we've seen.
We bargain with a driver for a taxi fare to the airport, and soon after lunch we're taking off over the rolling green hills, headed for Nairobi. At Nairobi we spend eight hours waiting for our next flight, which takes us off to Europe.
We've spent seven weeks in Africa, in seven countries, seeing and experiencing an amazing array of cultures, landscapes, animals, foods, and meeting some great people. It is impossible not to be affected by the poverty that is experienced everywhere in Africa. Life really is a daily struggle for many of the people here, as they scrounge together enough to feed their families. How charmed our life seems back home in Australia. And yet at the core people here are often so happy, because they have what is important.
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