Arrival in Kigali. We touched down in Rwanda at around 8-8:30 AM local time after having a very early start to our travel here. Our first plane from Dar left at 5 AM, so we were up and ready to go at 3.. We had two short flights, with a leighover in Nairobi, Kenya. Right off the bat, Rwanda was a great place for me to practice my French, although different people in Kigali seem to speak varied languages. French, English, Kiswahili and the main language, Kirwanda, were all spoken here. Every person seemed to speak a different tongue, or a different combination of them. The crew checked in at our hostel (Discover Rwanda Youth Hostel), got lunch, then pumzika’d (rested) HARD (we were all exhausted from the early-morning start.) The next morning, we planned out what we were going to do with our free time in Kigali. The group concencus was to even out genocide-based educational activities with some fun things (like going to craft markets or to a movie, both of which we did) so that we wouldn’t all be blobs of sadness. Jack and I wrote out a plan of what WE thought should happen over the next few days. We called this absolutely brilliant plan ‘Jack and Liam’s Plan’. The plan revolved around visiting 4 specific sites: The Presidential Palace Museum, The Rwanda Nziza Craft market, and the Nyamata and Ntarama memorial sites. Jack and Liam’s plan prevailed and all the sites were visited. HARD.
I could go on for hours about everything we did in our little time spent here, but I’m going to focus on the more serious aspects of our visit. Some of the things you’re about to read may seem absolutely gruesome, but it is all the reality of what happened here. My intentions behind sharing these experiences with you are to further the understanding of what I experienced here.
After a morning of planning, the group ate lunch at the hostel then took a visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial. I felt that this museum was a really good introduction for the group to understand the atrocities that took place in 1994. Some of the things we saw here were brutal: rows of cracked skulls, videos of people being hacked to death in the streets, and the worst was the Children’s Room. There were rows of pictures of kids and underneath was listed their names, ages, favourite spot, best friend, favourite colour, favourite subject, etc., and cause of death. This room was a heavy hitter. Another heavy hitter was the “Materials Room” (containing Materials that had been recovered after the mass killings). One item that really stood out to me was a t-shirt from Ottawa, Canada. This is where my mom was born and raised. Just seeing this and processing what I was looking at really broadened my appreciation for my family and how privileged of a life I live. I was one of the last ones to leave the museum and when I stepped out the door I saw the rest of the group scattered about the entrance area, everyone sitting in silence. This museum was the start of much emotional drainage that people experienced in Rwanda. The next morning we visited the Presidential Palace Museum. Here was where President Habyarimana lived(the Hutu president who reigned during the rise of the Interhamwe- the anti-Tutsi militia), and coincidentally (or maybe not coincidentally at all) the crash site of the airplane carrying the president of Burundi as well as Habyarimana himself. The plane was shot down on April 6, 1994, and this even t was the spark to the ethnic cleansing that took place. President Habyarimana had the palace built for himself and his family because he wanted a home that, “lived up to his standards”. It really was a palace. The place was huge, filled with crazy art pieces from China, and of all places, North Korea. It had massive dining and living spaces, and even had a hidden passageway leading to the upstairs. The upstairs had a hair salon, a room for prayers, many foreign animals’ mounted skulls, and a witchdoctor room. The house was equipped with a pretty serious security system. Just a little ways a way from the houst is where the plane crashed, and there are still parts of the broken aircraft sitting in a neighboring field. It’s crazy to think that the President’s family watched the crash occur in their own backyard.
After returning to town and getting something to eat, the kids set off to find L’Hotel des Milles Collines (aka Hotel Rwanda). After finally distinguishing it’s whereabouts, Amanda, Kellie and I plotted how to get INTO the building while the others helped one another with banking issues. We were pretty sure that only guests were allowed in, but we walked through the parkade (after having walked past security), and casually walked own to the pool. I remember Kellie saying, “Just pretend like we’re staying here!”. By the pool deck we found an open door and the next thing we knew we were in the lobby! Here we realized that all the guests were checked by security at the front entrance and all bags were searched, but we managed to avoid this. We were surprised at how big and nice the hotel was, and we also were a little stunned by how little credit the hotel had, considering it’s history. There was no museum, no informational plaques, nothing emphasizing the hotel’s history. It was just a fancy hotel! If you didn’t know what had happened there, you never would have found out. That being said,. it was up to our imaginations to picture it’s past, so, of course, we went exploring. We got on the elevator and went to the top floor, then proceeded to adventure throughout the hotel. It was awesome and we were so glad that we chose to explore!
The next morning we hired a driver to take us to the Nyamata and Ntarama memorial sites. (These were about a 45 minute drive south of the Kigali hub, and about 15 minutes away from one another.) These churches were basically slaughterhouses during the genocide. We visited Ntarama first. At this church , loads of clothes were piled on the floor and hung from the rafters, all of the garments being the ones victims were wearing when they were killed. There were also around 50 coffins in the room, each holding the remains of approximately 100 people. At the end of the room, there was a large shelving unit holding many skulls and other bones of victims. The place reeked of death. Interhamwe militia had locked the Tutsi inside the church, then thrown grenades inside through the open cement windows. There was another room behind the church where many children were murdered, and where many women were brutally raped and killed. There was a permanent bloodstain on the wall where militia members would grab children by their legs, and bash their heads in on the birck. Leaning against the wall next to the stained brick was a long, sharp stick which was inserted into women, killing them after they had been raped, most likely multiple times. Covering the walls were messages from children who had survived the genocide, written to the ones who didn’t. Looking around, I noticed the group’s expressions. Everyone had a very serious look on their faces, yet still looked like they were on the verge of tears. I myself almost felt sick to the stomach, especially after out guide for this site told us how he had survived. He had hid under piles of dead bodies, and for the rest of the story he left it at, “It was God who saved me”. Seeing that this man had been in a situation much like the one he was explaining to us, we realized how dedicated he is to letting the world know what happened, an trying to avoid future circumstances, like this one, from re-occurring.
The next church was equally as brutal. The original door to the church had been blown in by grenades, and the whole roof had holes in it from grenade shrapnel. There were still bullet holes in the walls everywhere from militia gunning down those hiding inside. All of the benches in the church were stacked with clothing, and there were several benches dedicated specifically to children’s attire. There were catacomb-type, underground bone yards filled with numerous coffins (once again, each holding multiple bodies’ remains) and rows of skulls and other bones. Some of the skulls had holes in them from bullets, others had distinct cracks in them where a machete had struck, and others were shattered from being bludgeoned with clubs.
Overall, our little time spent in this beautiful place was well used, and I feel like I can speak for the group by saying that our experiences were all very thought-provoking. I hope everyone reading this can have the same experience that we had some day.
Peace out, Rwanda! Uganda, you’re next!
-Liam