Warning: This post goes into graphic details about my experience in a country where a brutal genocide occurred a mere 26 years ago. Please only read this post if you are okay with reading about this kind of heart-wrenching tragedy.
In April of 1994, Hutus were given orders to murder Tutsis or else they themselves would be killed. Community members turned on their friends, family, and neighbors by killing each other with machetes and clubs with nails on them. Tutsi women and children were especially targeted in order to prevent a new generation of Tutsi people from emerging. In a short 90 day period, close to one million people were slaughtered one by one.
Rwanda blew me away in ways that I could have never imagined. Before I entered Kigali (Rwanda’s capital), I expected it to look similar to Lira or the Katanga slums, where people were living in poverty and trash. However, Kigali turned out have more similarities to Dubai than it did to Lira or the slums. The streets were paved and well maintained, the city was blooming with grass and plants, and there was no litter to be found anywhere. As it turns out, citizens can be convinced to do just about anything to avoid another genocide. Luckily, the government has used this for good instead of bad. In 2007, single use plastic bags were banned from the country. If you try to cross the border with anything in a plastic bag, it will be disposed of before you can enter. Citizens are also required to do one day per week of mandatory community service. We drove past multiple groups of people who were landscaping medians to make Rwanda an even more beautiful place. However, a shadow of the genocide was cast over all of Rwanda. People were still kind and welcoming, but the country was not as alive as Uganda was. When I had spoke with Ugandans, everyone expressed how much they loved their country. In Rwanda, everyone that I spoke to was looking for a way out of the country to start a life somewhere else. There was a weight that could be felt while looking around the streets of Rwanda. Anyone who was my age or older had likely seen their loved ones slaughtered, or had been forced to kill their fellow community members. Young children had not witnessed this brutality first hand, but they saw it continued to affect their parents and grandparents.
We arrived in Kigali on Tuesday evening and made our first stop at Mezze Fresh, which is Rwanda’s spin-off of Chipotle. Although I was beginning to resent rice a little bit since it was my standard lunch and dinner every day, I was not going to turn down the freshest mango salsa that I had ever tasted. We then checked into our hotel, where I had both good pressure AND hot water in my shower for the first time in two weeks. Our hotel had a beautiful pool and a bar and restaurant. Sitting by the pool with a fresh juice cocktail and palm trees around me had me questioning if I was still in Africa or if I was in California. We had a nice dinner with a Rwandan music producer (who is also declared to be the Rwandan Jay-Z), Clement Ishimwe. I went to bed “early” (11pm) that night to prepare for an emotionally exhausting morning to follow.
Our first destination on Wednesday was the Kigali Genocide Memorial. We read about the history of how the genocide came to be and about how involved the French were in creating it. We watched videos of survivors that talked about what they had to do in order to escape and how they watched their loved ones be slaughtered in front of them. Hundreds of thousands of photos of people who died during the genocide were hung throughout the museum. Skulls with indents from the whacks of machetes and clubs were on display to demonstrate how horrific the murders really were. What really got me was the children’s room, where certain children who were murdered were featured. A biography was laid out about what the children’s favorite foods and hobbies were and how the children were killed. Some were so young, their favorite food was breast milk, and their favorite hobbies were making gestures, because they were too young to do much else. The babies were typically killed by being slammed against walls. Outside of the memorial, the grounds were beautifully maintained. I saw two birds sharing a fruit off of a tree, which really contrasted with the horror that was on display just inside of the walls. I picked up a couple books there on the genocide and I’d be happy to share them with anyone who would like to know more about first-hand accounts of what happened in Rwanda on those dark days in 1994.
After the memorial, we went to a church in Nyamata, where thousands of people were slaughtered. The church grounds now house a mass grave where over 4,000 people are laid to rest. The church’s doors were opened by a hand grenade and then almost everyone who was taking refuge in the church were brutally massacred. The blown door still remains, as well as bullet holes and blood spatter on the walls. All of the clothing that people had worn on that day were laid out on the pews to demonstrate just how many people lost their lives in that one spot. We were taken to see coffins that were filled to the brim with unidentified bones and skulls of people who were killed on that day. Again, this was some of the most horrific content I have ever seen, yet the grounds were beautifully maintained. Just behind a chain link fence next door was a primary school, where the children had recess and were running around laughing and playing outside. I thought that this contrast was really relieving. It showed that although this tragedy occurred not too long ago, the community was rebuilding, and the next generations will never have to see that kind of horror.
After taking some time to process what we had just seen, we did some decompressing by going to the craft market to buy local hand-made gifts for our loved ones. After that, we swung by the hotel that the movie “Hotel Rwanda” was based off of. We then had a nice dinner with a special guest who started an organization in Rwanda to help refugees secure jobs. We spent our last night as a group having drinks outside on the patio. The next morning, we packed up our things to head back to the U.S. and then set out for a tour at the U.S. Embassy. We were lucky enough to meet with an ambassador there, and learned about how the State Department might be a possible career opportunity for us once we have finished with our degrees. We then went to the Marriott to have lunch and hang out before we left in two different groups for the airport. We had our final lecture and gave each other lots of hugs (and maybe shed some tears as well). After spending two weeks in tight quarters with each other, our group became incredibly close. I hope to maintain these friendships for many years to come.
On Thursday night, I took off from Kigali to head back to the United States. Surprisingly, the security/customs in Rwanda are much more intense than anywhere I have been. Luckily, all of my flights took off as scheduled (I can’t say the same about some of my classmates’ flights!) and after about 40 hours traveling through airports and in the air, I made it home safely. I’m now in the process of trying to unpack and regulate my sleep schedule before school starts again in a couple days.
Thanks to everyone who has followed along on this journey with me. I’m now tucking away both my passport and my blog until the next adventure!
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