Weekend With the Girls in Rwanda

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Leandra and I took one Friday off from Kihefo so we could meet up with the rest of the U of S girls and go to Rwanda for the weekend. The girls, Gena, Thea, Heather and Lindsay made their way to Kabale early in the afternoon where we hired a driver to take us to Kigali, the capital city.



The Rwanda border is only a short drive away from where Leandra and I stay so we made it there in less than 45 minutes. At the border, they took all our passports, visas and paperwork at the same time while we waited off to the side. While we were waiting, people behind us in line would come and go, as they were still processing our information. Eventually, after about 45 minutes they started to hand back our passports. When I finally got mine I noticed my yellow fever vaccination card was missing, which I need to come home. I brought this up to them, and at first they had no idea what I was talking about and then tried to tell me that I didn't have it in my passport, even though the other girls had seen me hand it to them. Finally, they started looking for it, very slowly I might add, but never found it. After another half hour wait, they took a copy of my passport, and wrote my phone number down in case they came across it. Given Rwanda is a country that supposedly has its shit together, they sure seem pretty disorganized. Oh well, I'll deal with it when I get back to Uganda.



Another short drive later, and we would make it to Kigali. Now, you'd expect that with it bordering Uganda it would be pretty similar in structure, but Kigali was COMPLETELY different! All the roads were paved, there were actual concrete sidewalks, and the city even had traffic lights at intersections! It's amazing how many small things you forget about, and take for granted, once you no longer have them. People also appeared to drive in a relatively orderly way, and all boda boda drivers had helmets. Plus, the city was far cleaner and well groomed than most I've seen in Canada, which is largely due to a law stating that all citizens must clean the streets the last Saturday of every month. I didn't have much culture shock upon arriving in Uganda, but I felt some of the reverse of it here in Rwanda.



It had already started to get dark and the girls were pretty tired from the long day of travelling so we decided to just spend the night having supper and catching up. All of us desperately needed a “real” meal; the daily dose of rice, potatoes and beans was getting old real fast. I'm not one to really discuss food, but I had a panini with goat cheese in it. CHEESE! Oh my god cheese!! It had been weeks since I've had cheese. Some of the girls ordered chocolate cake and had to hold back tears of joy as they devoured it.



In the morning we made our way to the Rwanda Genocide Memorial. Quick note: a big thanks to Leandra for taking all the photos inside the museum for us (and most of the photos, in general from Rwanda)! This museum is a powerful reminder of the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi tribe in Rwanda, but also touches on other genocides of the last century. Of course, they had a section on the holocaust, but they also had memorials dedicated to the Cambodian, Armenian and a few other genocides. Like the Rwandan genocide, many of these have occurred within my lifetime and it shocks me, and more so disgusts me, that they are not more well known or taught in school. The Rwandan genocide, in particular, was incredibly violent and the killings were utterly ruthless and merciless. Almost one million people died, mostly Tutsi's in a period of about 100 days, while the international community largely stood back and ignored the county's desperate need for help. I'm not going to go into a history lesson, and I'll save the gory details, but I highly suggest reading about the genocide because it is fascinating, and was so very recent in history. I visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland a few years ago, and I found this memorial site to be more unsettling. Maybe because this genocide was more violent, or because the museum was quite graphic and descriptive of the methods used to slaughter people, but I found myself having to hold back tears by the end. One of the hardest parts of the museum was the room dedicated to children, where they displayed pictures of some of the children who were killed along with descriptions of their likes and interests and then the brutal way they were killed. There were also videos of a survivors telling their stories, many witnessing the murders of their families and suffering unimaginable abuse themselves. One woman explained how Rwanda had been transformed into hell in under 24 hours and described how the streets were filled with bodies rotting. She even remembered seeing a young baby trying to breast feed off it's dead mother.



The memorial site also serves as a mass burial ground, and to this day is still receiving bodies to bury at the museum. There were a few long, large mass burials, including one open one at the end. It was layered with caskets and had glass windows for us to look in. As we were walking through the grounds, a large group of well-dressed people walked in, all wearing small silver ribbons. Naturally, we followed the crowd to see what was what going on. We stopped following them as they walked further through the garden and turned to see two groups of people carrying in two caskets. A funeral was happening at that very moment. We bowed our heads out of respect as they carried the caskets by. This sight really drove home the reality of just how recent this genocide was, and that most Rwandans are still coping with the loss of loved ones.



After the memorial we spent a couple hours at a local handicraft market, buying souvenirs for ourselves and people back home. I must say, I'm not much of a barterer, but thank god I had Leandra with me who helped us get some great deals on a few items!



The next morning we were hoping to visit another genocide memorial site, the Nyamata church, which has been perfectly preserved since the killings that happened 20 years ago. Unfortunately, our van had broke down – good ol' African transport. We ended up spending most of the morning either stuck on the side of the road or in the garage having our engine fixed. I'm actually quite bummed about missing out on this site, I guess I'll just have to come back some day!



But I got some good news though! While on the road to the Rwanda/Uganda border, the border patrol men called and they actually found my yellow fever card! Now, that is something I would never have expected from Africa. However, the border patrol men were quite the assholes when I came to pick up the card, telling me I owe them an apology because the card was lost on the Ugandan side. Bullshit, as the girls had seen me hand it over to them. Oh well, at least I got it back!



And that wraps up our Rwandan vacation. Hope all is well back home and that the sun is finally shining for you guys! Xoxo

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Photos

Paved roads and traffic lights!
This was a really big deal to all of us