memorials

Today we piled into another matatu and drove to two more genocide memorials just outside Kigali. It was after another delicious lunch that Aidah prepared for us, and after a short siesta we headed out. I've grown accustomed to the colorful chair selections in the matatus, as well as the comfortable feeling of the air moving by my face and arms as I am almost pushed out the window by lack of space. And it's always kind of funny the stuff on the back of van, and the variety of music played. Last time the van was a pimp wagon that said "Rick Ross" with giant picture of him on the back, and we bumped old school rap the whole time. This time our matatu taxi said "Nigga 1" on the back (I don't know what that means?) and we listened to inspirational ballads the whole time. The CD skipped a lot though. 

We drove to the first genocide memorial. As we approached the buildings where the memorial was held, our group held a sort of solemn silence. The guide came forward and told us a bit about the location--it was a Catholic church; one building a chapel, one building a sunday school room, and a couple other buildings as well. Upon entering the chapel, our guide told us that 5,000 Tutsis had been murdered there in two days. The chapel was full of clothes of the murdered. Shirts, pants, dresses, blankets, socks. The walls were adorned with the tattered clothing of those who'd been killed. On the back wall was a shelf with different levels. On each of the levels there were human skulls, some of them incomplete, some of them with more machete cuts than one, some with bullet holes. There were also femurs and other human bones from bodies from the killings there.

At the front of the chapel were a few coffins, probably only 12. Our guide told us that six on the left side were found last year, in 2011, in the area. It smelled like dust and decay in the room. 

The second building was where school children hid from the killers for some time, until the wall was blown open by grenades. It was another room where children had been killed. There were shelves where the books of students used to leave their books.

The last two buildings were the worst. One of them was a structure where there were burnt mattresses and clothing all over the floor. They had incapacitated victims and burned them on mattresses. I stepped on someone's underwear, and noticed a shoe. The last building was the Sunday school room. There were small pews made of concrete. On the wall was a spot where the killers had killed babies by smashing their heads against the brick. The mixture of blood, brain, and hair had left a stain on the wall that never was washed. The rest of the building looked fairly clean except for that dark spot on the wall.

The most intense part was when the tour concluded and our guide asked if we had any questions. Carly asked how he escaped… he described how he had stayed hidden in swamps and on the hill. She asked if he could tell his story, and in more detail he described the day his father was killed but by chance he made it away from the pursuing soldiers. We stood out there out in the breezy air by the planted gardens, gathered around this thin man telling his story. He concluded by saying that he had left out a lot, but that it was terrible. As we gathered into our van to leave, locals gathered around to look at the bunch of muzungus that had come to the memorial. And we left that place. 

We drove further down the road, and I couldn't really think of words for in the van. I felt kind of weird because some of the other people were talking and I just couldn't say anything. I just felt like crying. Here was a man who had his life traumatized and now has a job reliving the massacres for tours. And he was grateful to do it. He said himself that he is not pessimistic; what happened in the past is in the past and he does not mind talking about it. I couldn't help but think what a genuinely beautiful human could do that-- to not be consumed by rage, bitterness, and sorrow, and instead quietly, slowly, describe the horrors he experienced in hopes of teaching a new generation what happened. 

We arrived at the second memorial, another Catholic church. The group piled out and we visited the inside. Our guide described how the church had been a safe haven in initial killings in 1992, and thousands flocked during the 1994 killings, but instead were all slaughtered there. 10,000 people lost their lives in and around the church. The pews were stacked high with the clothes of victims. They looked ordinary, but were dusty, old, and decayed. I could see many colors, weaves, and designs on all the clothing. The interior of the church smelled like age and decay. A musty, dusty smell. There were bullet holes in the ceiling and holes from the shrapnel. They had thrown grenades into the church because the people were too tightly packed to kill with machetes. They had thrown the grenades first and gone in afterward with machetes to kill the survivors in the sanctuary. 

Behind the church were mass graves of 45,000 people killed in the genocide. We could actually go down inside… one of the graves was a narrow, tall hallway that held skulls and other bones on shelves. The underground hallway was narrow, and it was dark. The weight of a thousand lives was thick in the air. I saw so many skulls… it was so weird to be able to reach out and touch them. I didn't, but they were inches from me. Prematurely ended lives now lined up in front of me. The skulls were yellowish, and a few of them had obvious machete holes. After we had a chance to see the graves, a lady that had been cleaning the church came with us in the matatu to a different location, to tell her story. 

Pastor Anostase, our professor for Issues in Peacekeeping class, led us on this trip to the memorials, and had heard this woman's testimony before. We circled around her on a random back road and she spoke Kinyarwanda and told her story. Pastor Anostase translated. 

Her name was Sarafina. To hear her tell her story in her native language, hear her tell how her husband was killed, but she was for some reason spared with her children… it was gut wrenching. She wept when she told about her children and her staying in the overcrowded basement of a church for two months while people wept and died all around her. She and her children made it out alive. 

The most powerful part for me was to hear her say that she forgives them. She has forgiven the Hutus who killed her husband. It made me weep to hear her say that she now prays and worships with them. That is what hit me the hardest. Seeing this woman who has every reason to live in hatred, but has found the power to forgive and love in the gospel of Jesus. Pretty much everyone was in tears by the end of it. We were fairly silent on the return journey to the house. 

Learning and perceiving this genocide in different ways has opened my eyes to how dark, deep, and tense things still are. I am so encouraged to hear firsthand the reconciling power of God. But I am also very intimidated by the enormity of the horror of it all. After today and the last memorial we went to last week, I have become even more convinced I am called to prevent this tragedy from ever repeating.