Rwanda

July, 2009

Scenery - Rwanda is the Land of 1000 Hills and an absolutely most beautiful country!

Cows - I was part of the team working with farmers on animal husbandry

Learning Spaces - We were there to teach but I feel we learned as much as we taught

Genocide Memorials - We always say, "Never forget." Will we forget again the next time?

Churches and Music - This country lives and sings it's faith

People - Wonderful people we met

 

Murambi Genocide Memorial

This was a newly built secondary school. It wasn't operating yet. The Tutsi's were told that it would be a safe place so people fled to the school for sanctuary. Instead of finding safety, however, the people found only death. Over 2-3 days, 50,000 people were slaughtered while the French stood aside.

 

The people were buried in mass graves such as under this volleyball field.

 

As people were buried, their belongings were stored in the school mess.

 

For the memorial, the bodies were dug up and coated with lime and displayed in room after room after room. These were intended to be school rooms. Now we learn very powerful and important lessons in these rooms. Or at least I hope we have learned..

People leave flowers to remember their loved ones.

Everyone was killed, even little children.

Emmanuel was shot and left for dead with his family and neighbors and strangers all crowded into one of the classrooms. But he survived. He has a bullet in his brain and the scar to show the constant reminder of the senselessness.

 

We also visited the memorial in Kigali. It was a very good factual account of the events. They also have an exhibit on other genocides throughout recent history. We couldn't take pictures inside but the Web site is very good: http://kigalimemorialcentre.org/old/index.html