Rwanda

Bonjour! Andrej and I are currently spending our last day in Rwanda. We have enjoyed one week here, and it has been a good experience.

Not too long ago, Rwanda wasn't a place anyone would want to visit. There was a lot of political and ethnic strife, which culminated in the 1994 genocide. However, the Rwanda of today seems to be moving forward and has turned out to be a nice place to visit. It also has a lot to teach.

I am intending to share what I have learned in this blog. Some of this might be unpleasant. If you would rather not hear about the atrocities of the genocide, please stop reading.

We arrived by bus from Uganda. The bus ride was about 10 hours, but was fairly uneventful for once. The border crossing was slow, but again, no problems. We arrived in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Rwanda is the 'land of 1,000 hills,' and like Minnesota being the land of 10,000 lakes, its very true to its name. The city of Kigali is sprawled across rolling hills. The city itself is one of the nicest African cities we have been to so far. Granted, we have not seen terribly much of the city, but what we have seen of downtown is very nice. First of all, its much easier being a pedestrian here. In other African cities, pedestrians do NOT have the right away. There are usually no crosswalks, and traffic lights where pedestrians can cross are few and far between. However, they have crosswalks here. And to our delight, they will sometimes even yield to pedestrians! They even have the occasional walk signal. Its been a relief after fearing for our lives crossing other streets in places like Kampala, Arusha, and Dar Es Salaam. They also have a number of well maintained sidewalks, which can be hard to find around here. Otherwise, the city has a number of nice buildings and stores, and well stocked supermarkets. Public transport between other cities in Rwanda also tends to be much nicer than elsewhere, and fairly inexpensive.

Anyways, our first priority in Rwanda was to learn. We wanted to learn more about the genocide and its effects. So, on our first full day in town, we went to the Kigali Memorial Center. We were greeted by a staff member who first took us through a walk in the gardens before going in to view the museum part of the center. The gardens were large and meticulously maintained with beautiful landscaping. There were all kinds of flowers, some fountains, and statues. Inside the gardens, there are over 250,000 people buried in about 15 mass graves. Each of the mass graves is rather deep, and contains a number of coffins filled with bones of victims. Many of the graves had wreathes and flowers laid on them. Near one of the fountains were elephant statues. The staff member told us they were chosen because elephants never forget, and the genocide should never be forgotten. This was a sobering experience. In a country as small as Rwanda, with a total population of about 10 million, its very hard to wrap your mind around the fact that 1 million Rwandan people were killed in the genocide.
A couple of the mass graves in the gardens.

After touring the gardens, we were taken to the museum building. Downstairs is all about the Rwandan genocide. You can find much of what I learned at their website here: http://www.kigalimemorialcentre.org/old/index-2.html. I will try to give a summary of some of what I learned about the background of it and what happened. I will try to be as accurate as my memory recalls.

The genocide was a result of a conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. Back in the beginning of the 20th century, Rwanda was colonized by the Belgians. The Belgians decided in the 1930s that they needed to classify the people in Rwanda and form a ruling class of the native people. The native Rwandans had some of their own classifications, but they were socio-economic classifications, which could change in ones lifetime. The people spoke a common language and had a common culture. 2 categories in the socio-economic classifications included Hutu and Tutsi. The Belgians decided to use that in their classification system, and they said that anyone who owned more than 10 cows would be a Tutsi, and anyone with less than 10 cows was a Hutu. And you were that for life, as were your descendants. Seems a bit arbitrary, no? The Tutsis only comprised about 10 percent of the population, and they became the ruling class as dictated by the Belgians.

When you have an almost exclusive minority rule and privilege, that will lead to problems. When the Belgians pulled out in the 60s, the Tutsi minority was overthrown by the Hutu majority in terms of power. The Hutus has some resentment towards the previously favored Tutsis, and the Tutsis were likely none to happy to have their privilege revoked. Conflict was brewing.

Fast forward to 1994. The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were shot down in a plane and died. From then, the planned genocide of the Tutsis occurred. The Hutu military had death lists of Tutsis. If you were on it, they went to your house and killed you. They set up road blocks in the city so no one could leave. If you were stopped, and you were Tutsi, they killed you. If you were Hutu, but known to be friends with or married to or otherwise associated with Tutsis, they killed you. Media propaganda for the extermination of the Tutsis was prominent and effective. There was no discrimination between killing men, women, or children, innocent or not. In the first days of the genocide, 10 Belgian UN peacekeepers were killed, and the small amount of international troops that were in Rwanda, left. The international community seemed to turn a blind eye to Rwanda and left them to work it out alone. A Belgian colonel had even asked for assistance from the UN months before. No action was ever taken, something which the UN leaders came to regret.

In the end, about 85% of the Tutsi population was killed.

Also downstairs, there were personal exhibits. One room housed family photos of the victims. It really put a personal feeling and a face to the genocide. Looking at those pictures, I realized that they reflected things in people that I know and their photos looked very similar to photos in my own family albums. There were pictures of children standing outside of their school with their buddies. A man on his new motorcycle, cigarette in mouth. A woman in her new dress. Multi-generational photos outside the grandpa's home. A young boy near a banana tree. A couple on their wedding day, cutting the cake. There were lots of photos like that. Of regular, everyday people, murdered because one of their ancestors had 10 cows 60 years ago. And these photos were mostly in color. Not black and white relics of something long ago, that could have only happened long ago.

Another exhibit was of clothing taken from some of the mass graves around the city. Not the mass graves in the garden. The mass graves where people were left after they were mass murdered. The clothes were like anything you might buy in the store around here today. Bright clothes for the wrap around skirts the women wear. Men's t-shirts and pants. A torn sweater of a young boy, with a Superman bed sheet next to it.

Another room was another grave site. Only this one was viewable- behind glass cases were piles and piles of bones. A number of the skulls had obvious fractures. The machete was a weapon of choice, and it seemed that many died by a machete to the head.

Upstairs were two exhibits. One was a children's exhibit. Here again, there were many small snapshots of children who were murdered. There were also large blown up photos of a number of kids, as well as some personal facts about each one. Age, favorite food, best friend, hobby, favorite toy. And, how they died. This had to be the worst part of the genocide. The exhibit had young kids, but also babies. One who was featured was 9 months old. Not old enough to have a favorite hobby or a best friend. Certainly not old enough to be a threat to anyone. I believe that particular child's cause of death was being thrown against a wall. The other frequent causes of death of the children were machetes and bludgeoning. I still can't imagine how so many people were committing these acts and thought it was OK. I thought of those kids, and how many of them would be about my brothers ages. Making their way through high school.

The last exhibit was on genocides throughout history. For example, in Germany, Namibia, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, and Armenia. It was another thing that made me wonder how in the world this can keep happening, over and over all throughout the world.

We left the museum having learned a lot about the past of Rwanda. I really don't know how the people who went through this and witnessed all of it can move on. But they do. Occasionally you see reminders of the past- people without limbs, people with large scars, etc. But otherwise, life has gone on here, and people seem to be looking toward the future and living quite peacefully. I guess when your past is that bad, there isn't anything else you can do.

The next day, we headed out to a smaller town called Butare. Its about 2 hours from the capital, and a nice college town. It was graduation weekend while we were there, and we saw many proud graduates in their robes celebrating with their friends and family. There is a national museum in Butare, and we spent an afternoon there looking at the exhibits on Rwandan culture. It was a beautiful, well done museum. This town seemed to have a rhythm of its own- opening late on the weekend, seemingly whenever they felt like opening. We found some nice restaurants in town and soaked up the culture.

One morning, Andrej went out to a genocide memorial in Gikongoro. During the genocide, many of the people sought refuge in churches, schools, and the rural hills. Usually the refuge was temporary, and they were mass murdered. This memorial, as like many all over the country, was the site of on the these places. It was a former technical college. They buried many people in a mass grave outside the college, but they also preserved many of the bodies with lime powder (for the sake of preservation for the memorial) and left them as they were in the classrooms. Andrej said many of them were children. He was shown around by a man who was a survivor. He had a big hole in his forehead where he had taken a bullet. That man was one of 4 who survived. Out of 50,000.

We spent one last day on a little lighter note. We attempted to go out to a national park where we could take some nice hikes and see a lot of monkeys. Unfortunately, our minibus we took out their broke down and we got there much later than we had hoped. When we arrived, the rangers told us the price had gone up considerably from what our guidebook had said. He also said that public transport home was sparse. So, we decided to just have a picnic, and turn around and try to get the 2 hours home. In Africa, you can stand at the side of any road and try to hail a bus or minibus. So this is what we tried to do. But we waited 15 minutes, and no cars came in our direction. We were about to give up hope when a full bus sped by, but stopped a bit down the road. Two passengers got off, and we were able to take their spots! We felt very lucky. Riding back, I noticed a lot of military personal along the road. That's when I realized that we were not far from the DRC, and that this was the road leading between the 2 countries. And a huge forest would be a great place for guerrillas to hide. I felt a little better when I thought back later to the military man who was standing outside the park entrance gate watching us try to hitch a ride, and how he smiled at us when we managed to get one. He didn't seem too concerned!
A view of the forest from our picnic table.

We made our way back to Kigali the next day. We have been doing a lot of planning for our future travels, and we decided it was once again time to get moving. Tomorrow, bright and early, we fly out to Malawi. Until next time from Malawi, take care everyone!

Jill