The land of 1,000 hills, perfect weather, and a torrid past

Greetings from Rwanda...the land of literally 1,000 hills and virtually perfect weather.  It's been 80 degrees with low humidity during the day and 55 degrees at night- just lovely!  The landscape is gorgeous- rolling hills, mountains, volcanoes, green lush vegetation, and birds chirping like I've never heard.

Amidst all this beauty is a past that many Americans only really know about from the movie "Hotel Rwanda". On April 13, 1994, I was a freshman in high school.  I was looking forward to my 15^th birthday. I was probably in the middle of cheerleading tryouts.  I barely remember the news talking about the genocide that was taking place across the globe from tiny Dunlap, Illinois.  I have a faint recollection that on Channel 1 (a short news program that our high school played during our homeroom- Anderson Cooper and Lisa Ling got their start there!) they reported something on this.  But other than that, my life as usual went on without a hitch. Meanwhile, the people of Rwanda were in hell. 

I arrived in Kigali (Rwanda’s capital) on a Saturday night and spent the first of my three weeks here working with our local office visiting a few health facilities, ministry officials, and hospitals in preparation for our workshop next week.  The entire time, in the back of my mind, the thoughts of “what was it like?  how horrible was it are in my mind? Were my local office colleagues affected?”  It was really hard to not think about that.

After the first week of work in Kigali and before we moved to the west on Lake Kivu for our workshop, I decided to make a visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial with my American colleague to learn more about what happened here 18 years ago.  I didn’t feel that it was right to be here and not go.  The site contains memorial gardens, a mass grave of 250,000 victims outside, and a set of exhibitions inside on the history and lead up to the genocide, video testimonies from survivors, a children’s memorial, and a short exhibit on genocide in other parts of the world (Namibia, Cambodia, Bosnia/Serbia/Croatia, and of the Jews during WWII).

Words cannot do justice in explaining what it was like to go through the memorial nor what it was like for the people here.  More than 2 million people died during the genocide in Rwanda (the total population of Rwanda was only 7 million).  This means that 30% of the population were murdered- men, women, children.  Who knows how many other million were involved in the brutal killings. Neighbors and family friends turned against one another.  Remains are still to this day being uncovered and many will forever be lost.

Picture of one of the mass graves at the memorial.

Quote from a boy in the Children's Memorial Section.  It reads " In my search for a hideout, I found Jerome, his legs cut off.  I could not leave him in this state.  I tried to lift up Jerome so that we could leave together, but the car of the commune stopped near me.  It was full of machetes and other instruments of death.  I lay Jerome down on the ground and ran because a man got out of the burgomaster's car to kill me.  He finished Jerome off.   I saw this when I looked back to see if anyone had followed me.  I will never forget the way Jerome's face was filled with desperation.  Whenever I think about it I cry all day long.  Eric, 13."

The reality of the genocide was made a bit more apparent to me when I arrived at our workshop here on Lake Kivu in the northwest part of Rwanda.  On our way here, we passed by another memorial site/graves.  We also passed by the training camp grounds of the Interhamwe military where they learned how to brutally murder people and planned the mass genocide of Tutsi people in 1994. I learned that one of our participants is a genocide widow.  She left the country for a refugee camp in the DRC with her two year old son and left her husband in Rwanda where he died.  Our colleague Barnabe adopted a two-year old genocide orphan and raised him as his own son.  Barnabe and his family had no information at all about the child or his family.  Another participant lost her older brother in the genocide- she was only 10 years old. A few of our work colleagues mentioned that their families (like many in Rwanda with more education and money) left in the 60’s when the government was started to turn.  They were born or grew up in Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, DRC, and Kenya, and only came back years later after tensions eased.

This divide and return of the country also can be seen in languages spoken- families who left for French speaking countries speak French (where French was taught in primary school- Burundi/DRC) and Kinyarwanda (the local language); families who left for English-speaking countries speak English and Kinyarwanda.  Those who stayed in Rwanda are most comfortable speaking in Kinyarwanda and depending on your schooling speak some French and perhaps some English.  (Try facilitating a workshop where 3 languages need to be spoken and I only speak 1 of them!).

The genocide was one of the most horrible atrocities that has occurred in my lifetime, and it’s a shame that the international community did not do more when they were actually given information that could have helped them prevent or at least lessen the death toll.  While I have only been in Rwanda two weeks, I feel a sense of pride for this country.  The president, Paul Kagame, turned the country full-speed ahead and forward after the genocide.  Rwanda is one of the most clean and safe African countries I have ever visited.  Their health indicators are improving at a rate most countries may never see.  The government has zero tolerance for corruption and is hell-bent on being the leading African nation in economic development and with English being adopted as the official language (though that transition will be slow), I believe Rwanda will get there.  To that I say, Bravo! And how can I help?

More news from Gisenyi, Rwanda, on our adventures around Lake Kivu soon!