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Published: January 14th 2011
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As we keep going the image of a peaceful farmland gets less blurry, less fuzzy as my ride strained up the hill. Could there be a worse feeling in travel? Sitting patiently behind some poor bloke busting his nuts cycling to get me to a site where a relative of his most likely was slaughtered to death… And all this for a dollar!
Genocide will forever be part of tourism in Rwanda, heck that’s the only thing I knew about this country before I arrived. I came here for a 2-day dose of depression and instead I got the impression of a successful up lifting place. Possibly the most organised country in Africa, which is spoiled by the constant reminder that it once was not like that.
Bicycle taxis are hard to take but I was left with no choice because I just had to see a few churches 25 and 30km south of the capital Kigali. These churches were used as slaughterhouses during the genocide war. It’s hard to motivate oneself for the day when you know its not going to be an enjoyable experience. I had previous experiences in Cambodia but to get an understanding of the
countries history genocide destinations shouldn’t be ignored.
It isn’t completely necessary to see these sites as nearly every town and village in the country has some memorial. The President is getting a bad rap on too much genocide reminders. I’d probably agree, perhaps have a few major sites, up keep them and have that as the remembrance places. There was a conference when I was there re: genocide.
Everything else about the place seems to be un-African. Buses are on time, you have a seat to yourself, and they provide a ticket with the price on it. It’s clean and the roads are pretty good. Plus it has outstanding drainage. Never underestimate good drainage.
The country is similar to Uganda’s west, same lush green but the cultivated hills not as geometrically appealing. As with Uganda to support my ‘dictator/genocide theory.’ They too have moto taxis. I have to say I felt a lot safer in Uganda than here. Maybe because they provide helmets for you here and in Uganda they don’t. I felt I had a better chance of falling off in Kigali because the drivers had the carefree attitude that ‘well… we have helmets on.’
Place de I'Unite Nationale
In the distance is Hotel des Mille Collines There seems to be a lot of investment going into the country. I heard a lot of it is from Europe because they feel guilt from an event years ago… The roads were being upgraded when I was there and there are many Chinese workers. It’s one thing that has happened in more places in Africa than any other continent. China is everywhere. I heard that a lot of the Chinese workers are prisoners and their sentence is to go to Africa and work on projects but that is just a rumour. Whoever started that one is a genius as travellers have mentioned that throughout Africa.
Congo ruined my initial plans for Rwanda and I only travelled along the north. The road leading to Rwanda is picturesque going around the hilly landscape. After 2 hours of this, eventually a sprawl of urbanisation rises up from the bottom of numerous valleys up to the centre of Kigali. A few skyscrapers are around and the buses generally stop around the peak of Kigali’s hills. Near Hotel des Mille Collines the hotel the movie Hotel Rwanda was based on.
So there it is a reminder of 1994 again. In the city
there is the Kigali Memorial Centre, which describes the whole events from pre 1994 to build up to the main event. It also explains other genocides like Namibia. A German guy said to me it wasn’t a proud moment to see 2 of the 5 other Genocides mentioned were because of Germans. There were also mass gravesites and some symbolic gardens. Gardens of Unity, Division and Reconciliation etc.
It didn’t really inform much more than is already known so you can leave here and the country not learning any more. Alternatively you can force yourself to probably the best way to get to know visually as to what happened by heading to the churches south of Kigali.
What is good about this site is the government decided not to make money from their stupidity and donations are their funds. Apparently the sites don’t have many funds so upkeep is struggling. I donated a small fee because I had just spent $120 in visa fees. Surely the government will pass on some of that this way.
I caught a mini bus to Ntarama 25kms away. The church is inland from the main road. The locals like to see
Ntarama Memorial Church
To the right is the childrens room for Sunday School the tourist walk to the street sign and look confused as the sign points to a dead end and 200m away from where it should show. It’s about 2km inland so bicycle taxi is the only other option bar walking. Had it not been to see a genocide sight the ride is quite peaceful.
Which makes the whole genocide thing so confusing. The country now is so quite and friendly its hard to imagine these people could be involved in such an thing and less than 20 years ago. At the museum it finishes off with the children’s section. It says what their favourite food was etc. A profile in front of a large portrait photo - At the end of the profile it says how the child was murdered. Hacked by a machete, stabbed in the eye but the one that stands out is - thrown against a wall. One of those places where that act was done is Ntarama.
The village is a small farming village with a few buildings and a brick church covered now by a tin roof. It’s impossible to imagine what happened standing at the alter looking back with the innocence of
the afternoon sunlight beaming through but it tries with many of the victims clothes attached to the churches seats. Skulls and bones in the back. A quick study of the skulls and its clear how some were hit by machetes.
There are also more tangible things around like pens and school books to help reassure that this is human beings we are talking about. The outside of the church you can see there are holes in the framework. The rebels surrounded the church and threw grenades to weed them out. A mosaic window in the back is shattered. But that’s not the worst of it. Up the hill about 10m is the old Sunday school for the children.
I walk into a small room where low concrete seats are lined up surrounded by brick walls. The back wall to the left has a massive black red tinged stain. This is the place where no doubt screaming children were slammed to their deaths. We are looking at about 7m distance away from the beginning of the throw to the wall. A gruesome view and a graphic sight of seeing what humans are capable of doing. This stain is so
big its clear for all to see that it was not just one kid. Probably about a 3m circumference
Ntarama is a good indication at the hopelessness of the situation for the victims. It is remote and off the main road. Whilst Nyamata 5km down the main road and about 500m from town is a larger church just off the main road. The church still looks sturdy. Again the afternoon sun provides an eerie feeling. This time the clothes take a graphic look. Looking from one side to the other the dirty clothes look like people lying down.
The clothes dirty look is because of multiple reasons. The dust from outside, the dirt that the clothes were when they were killed and the most disturbing find when I was talking about it. Apparently some of the clothes are from the mass graves and so when the bodies were decomposing the clothes produce this dirty look.
I sure hope Rwanda do more about their tourism apart from the gorillas and genocide there is so much more positive about this country than elsewhere in Africa. If they can stick together for another generation or two this will be one
of Africa’s success stories if not already. In 16 years it has moved on better than any other country that I have visited.
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