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Published: October 27th 2007
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Just because we haven’t had enough holidays this year, we decided to go Rwanda for a week. Actually, we had to go, because my visa had expired (tourist visas only last six months, and my work visa hasn’t come though - surprise, surprise), but we weren’t complaining. So we flew into Kigali and had three days there, one in Butare, two in Kibuye and then another back in Kigali, before heading back to Nairobi. We actually were nearly not allowed into Rwanda because we hadn’t applied - and been given permission - to enter, which apparently you have to do.
After looking round Kigali on Sunday, we went to the genocide memorial centre in Kigali on Monday, which was a pretty horrific experience. To start with we were given a tour of the outside, which contains fourteen mass graves, with a total of 258,000 people (over a quarter of those killed). And they are still finding more bodies to be buried. Next to the graves are walls listing the names of all the people buried there. The lists show that whole families were frequently killed together. There is also a really nice garden for people to sit it, which is
particularly used by the families of those who were killed, who come to visit.
The inside of the memorial, is far more overwhelming, however. It contains detailed accounts and footage of the genocide, including many personal stories and graphic picture of the dead and dying. It also provides an excellent description of the lead up to the genocide, as well as the failure of the international community to intervene and prevent what could very easily have been prevented (the leader of the UN peacekeeping force claimed he could have prevented the genocide with just 5,000 troops, but his request was denied). There are rooms containing thousands of photos of those who died and others just displaying rows and rows of skulls and other bones…Upstairs there is also an excellent presentation of the other genocides which have taken place around the world.
The most touching part of the memorial, however, is an upstairs room which is dedicated to ‘the children who should have been our future’. This contains photos of children ranging from babies to about 10 years old, with profiles of each one. The profiles include such things as the kids’ favourite food, toys, games, best friends, last
words and the manner in which they were killed (ie. Shot, thrown against a wall).
On Tuesday we visited two churches about 25 kilometres out of Kigali, which now serve as memorials. The first, Ntarama, is a small church at which 5,000 people died, which has hardly been touched since the genocide took place. At one end there is a wall of shelves containing the bones of those killed; along the walls are the clothes the people were wearing at the time; basic cooking equipment and water containers take up one corner and the front it of the church, behind the alter is lined with coffins. Nyamata church is much larger and contains the remains of over 37,000 people. Outside are two massive underground graves which you can go down into. The first contains hundreds and hundreds of coffins, which often hold the remains of up to seven or eight people. The second is shelf after shelf of skulls and other bones. Fairly shocking stuff!!
OK, now that I’ve got that out of the way: The next day we got a bus to Butare in southern Rwanda, which is the next biggest town after Kigali. Apart from having
a very interesting museum (jeez we must seem like giant nerds - it must be Katherine’s influence), the place didn’t really have a lot going for it.
The next day we headed to Kibuye on Lake Kivu, which is one of the most beautiful places we’ve been to so far. I’ve only put up a few of the hundred thousand photos I took of the lake. Kibuye was all about relaxing (unusual for me), swimming, motorbike taxi-ing, being ambushed by kids running up to hug us mzungus, and not being able to communicate with people. While we’d had some trouble talking to people in Kigali - due to our inability to speak French and most people’s lack of English - we’d managed to get around it most of the time as a lot of people speak a bit of Swahili. In Kibuye, however, we had all sorts of trouble…
Probably the best example comes from dealing with Katherine’s new boyfriend, Emmanuel (K was the man magnet of Rwanda!! Ask her how many email addresses and phone numbers she collected). Emmanuel was our waiter one night and he had a little bit of trouble getting our order right: Katherine
ordered spaghetti bolognese and I ordered chicken curry. Instead we got two bowls of soup and fish and chips each. And then a bowl of tomato soup each, when K asked for tomato sauce. And warm beer…oh dear! All that trouble didn’t stop Emmanuel from busting some moves on K, and telling her ‘Kat, give me number…TELEPHONE!’ (I think he’d been practicing this in the kitchen for about an hour - that must have been what took our meals so long to come). All this against the backdrop of an amazing lightening storm over Lake Kivu and a Christian group rocking out upstairs...very amusing!
After Kibuye we bused back to Kigali and had an afternoon of doing markety-type things. In the evening we went to a restaurant called the New Cactus, which has a garden that overlooks Kigali which, when it’s lit up at night, almost looks like a city. And that’s all for Rwanda, as we flew back to Nairobi the next day.
Overall, we were very impressed with what we saw. Despite all tragedy, they seem to have moved on amazingly well. If it wasn’t for all the memorials, and the fact that there are a
lot of amputees around, you probably wouldn’t even know there had been a genocide.
On the way back from Nairobi we decided to fly back into Malindi, rather than Mombasa, as it’s easier to get home from the airport there, although the plane actually went via Mombasa anyway. That was actually really good, as we had a great view of the Kenyan coast on the last leg of our flight, and got some great pictures (I can’t claim credit for them, they’re K’s).
Whoops, that’s ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated…So, now we’ve got only six weeks to go in Kilifi, before coming home (via South Africa for two weeks, yippee!!).
Salama,
Brigid xoxo
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