Rwanda Genocide Tour

16th Dec, 9:33 | I’m sitting here in the pews of a church close to Homé Saint Jean. This was the site of one of the most gruesome massacres in Rwanda. The Tutsi were about 20% of the population in this Western District of Rwanda. It is estimated that about 9 out of 10 were slaughtered by the Hutu militia called the Interahamwe, an attempt to cleanse the ethnicity of these ‘cockroaches’ (as they were called).

Right now, three sparrows are doing barrel rolls between the church pillars. Yellow, green, red and pink lightbeams are fused in a luminous light tapestry. Turtledoves cooh in the trees outside. Christ the Messiah's passion is depicted in a series of events above the typical African tabernacle; adorned with ill-matching fabrics and carpets. Outside the moss green Lake Kivu is nested in luscious green cultured lands, rising starkly from the crater lake. A small boy just walked in, froze, mumbled something like 'muzungo ...' and turned on his heels; the organ blearing in the background.

Its hard to imagine that 15 years ago blood flowed in the rivers... like rivers... so much blood... so many dead... God have mercy on us because we do not know what we do...

12:07 | So the 1h15min motorbike ride comes to a halt in the village of Bisesero.

'URWIBUTSO RWA JENOSIDE
YAKOREWE ABATUTSI - MU W 1994'

reads the sign as I walk in the rain to the purple archway. I meet a young girl who manage to say that she will take me to the memorial (I struggle with language gap big time). We walk down to the corregated iron house where she unlocks the wooden door. It creeks open. And there lies, on long tables, hundreds of skulls and femur bones. I cant move. One step forward; look to the right. skulls with bullet holes, machete slashes and other obscure death signs. Two steps forward. I cant do this. How do you process this? I cried. But soon stopped. How does tears change the sight in front of you? These skulls were living people 15 years ago. A skull in a musuem with scientific research is one thing. But this is quite something different. The girl tells me that 15 - 16,000 people were killed here. I read that the Tutsi who fled here fought off the Hutus with basic farming implements and did so successfully. Until the Interahamwe launched a full on assualt on this hilltop country on 16 May '94. Some remain to tell the story; one boy lived among rotting corpses for 40-odd days.

I read a quote by Bill Clinton which read along the lines of, 'It didn't happen under my administration. It happened under me.' A sense of complacency and the bitter aftertaste. It makes me wonder why I am so complacent in these modern times. Yes, all is nice in the modern world and whatever; but what about the injustices of human trafficing, marginalising the poor, racism, etc etc. I dont have answers, just a desire to see the change (or rather become the change I want to see)

18th Dec, 16:05 | Today I went to visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial. It was very informative and I learned about the evils of the Colonialist who played tribes off against one another. I am also reading a very good book called 'Citizen and Subject' dealing on the issue of integrating Africans into their own land after colonisation. All these things just make me realise that we cant go round telling people what to do. we need to facilitate growth, not impose it. So it brings the end of a heavy few days asking some though questions. May Rwanda truly recover from this devasting war.

written by

afrikawasbeer on December 17, 2009 from Kigali, Rwanda

from the travel blog: Traveling Africa Overland

Send a Compliment

Hey Wallie,

dankie dat jy deel, ek kan nie imagine hoe intens dit is nie,maar jou woorde vertel dit baie eg.

Sterkte daarso, dink aan julle en bid vir julle!

written by Malherbe on December 19, 2009

Hi,

I love your blog,helpful, thanks for sharing!

written by ciaoamigos on January 4, 2012

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