I decided that on Friday I would forego the anesthesia learning and
work on some life learning for the day. I had reserved a spot at a
place in Nyungwe forest that night, which is a national park a couple
hours away, and I wanted to see one of the genocide memorials along
the way. I packed up my things from the Credo hotel, a half-decent
establishment that I called home in Butare, and made my way into town
to find a bus. Turned out that it was the day after all secondary
schools had their final day of the term, so the office was
ridiculously packed with students trying to get home. Luckily I'm 6'6"
and white, so I stand out and the people working there expedited the
process. Nonetheless, because of all the students, I had to wait 4
hours for the first bus.
I used the time in Butare to visit the national museum, which is
located there. The museum has a half dozen large rooms that highlight
the cultural history of Rwanda, including exhibits of clothing, tools,
weapons, housing etc… It was alright. I'll admit that it was a bit of
a snooze fest, but I generally feel that way about most historical
museums. Apparently there are some nice places around the country
where these traditional clothes are worn in traditional ceremonies,
dancing and weapon showmanship.
The road to Nyamagabe, where the Murambi genocide memorial is
located, was an hour of winding roads on terraced hills. There are
definitely more than a thousand hills here… ten thousand maybe. In any
case, after arriving at the bus terminal, I hopped on a moto-taxi (the
standard (and almost exclusive) mode of transport apart from the
buses) and rode the 2.5 km to the memorial. I'll talk about the
memorial after relaying the rest of my trip.
There is no direct bus (or at least not one leaving by the time I got
to the terminal) to Kitabi, on the edge of Nyungwe forest. I had to
hop on a smaller bus, a 19 seater, in order to get most of the way
there, then grab another moto-taxi the remaining distance to the
hotel. These were both great experiences in their own right. I arrived
at the hotel just as the sun was setting and the red light on the
countryside was amazing. I've got some great video of the motorcycle
ride. The whole adventure of figuring out how to get across the
country on my own was fantastic, juxtaposed against the gravity of
what I will now describe.
The Murambi memorial is located at what was once a polytechnical
training institute. During the genocide of 1994, 50'000 tutsis
gathered there for protection from the Interhamwe killing squads. Like
many of the supposed safe-havens around the country, as in churches or
hotels, the school only concentrated the victims, making it all the
easier to starve and then murder them. All 50'000 died. Grenades, guns
and machetes were the weapons of choice. Neighbours killed neighbours.
For a full account of the genocide and the events that led up to it,
I'd direct you to any number of books on the subject. I read
Dallaire's book. I've heard 'A Sunday by the pool in Kigali" is also
good.
At Murambi, the bodies were dumped in large mass graves beside the
school, many of which are still present today. Eventually the French
operation Turquoise came into the country and occupied the site,
apparently building a volleyball court on top of one of the graves.
The guide at the memorial blatantly implicated the French as
accomplices to genocide when I asked how they could be so
inconsiderate. This is the most direct accusation I've heard on the
issue, but it may only be one person's opinion. Dallaire certainly
found the French to be less than helpful when they came.
After the genocide, 850 of the dead were exhumed from the graves and
preserved with lyme. They are still there today, in 24 rooms of 30
bodies each. Men, women, babies: indiscriminate slaughter. Their
corpses rest in the positions they were buried in, skulls crushed or
limbs hacked off. They are bleached white and they smell strongly. Not
of decay, but of the lyme. I don't think I'll ever forget the smell.
If my writing is stark and heavy, it is because the memorial is
equally so. The people there want the world to remember the brutality
of the genocide so that it will never happen again. Any visit to this
site etches the reality of the event so deeply in one's head, that it
shall never be forgot. May they rest in peace.
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