February 13, 2011
Driving in Rwanda is more than somewhat of an adventure. People carry on about Israeli drivers, Boston drivers, New York taxi cab drivers, but really, you haven’t lived (or taken your life in your hands) until you’ve been on a “bus” in Rwanda. First of all, this bus was more like a metal rickshaw with wheels (hubcaps optional) and an engine that sometimes works. But, our driver, Bosco, was very safe and has clearly been driving through the hills of Rwanda for quite a while. After being on the aforementioned bus for more than seven hours today, knees in my nose in the middle of the back seat, Bosco’s defensive driving, and thus arriving back in the village in one piece, was fantastic.
We left this morning around 7:30 to Butare, which is in the southern province of Rwanda. Butare is home to a fantastic craft shop, hotel, two banks and a Rwandan buffet restaurant (yes, we went there for lunch. More on that soon). After driving for over three hours, we stopped at the handicrafts store to buy everything from beads to statues of women carrying baskets on their heads to hand-woven trays and bowls made by Rwandan women (after the genocide, 70% of Rwanda’s population was female, so women took it upon themselves to rehabilitate the country’s economy. Crafts like basket weaving and bracelet making were their methods of choice). The men running the shop were very happy to see fifteen Muzungu shoppers; we were happy to see them too until we realized they had to write up all of our receipts by hand (this took half an hour) and they had no shopping bags large enough for the baskets we all bought. This got interesting once we had to pile back in the bus (van, really) with our purchases on our laps. Once we finished at the craft store we walked down the street (maybe four storefronts) to the Rwandan buffet lunch. What’s funny about this is that it’s nothing like, say, a Las Vegas buffet, where patrons are urged to eat until they can no longer breathe. In Rwanda, everyone is allowed one plate of food (one piece of meat per person. Yes, they pay attention) and it ends there. So really, it’s eat whatever you can fit on your plate and then be done. This ended up being more than enough food (we all felt sick) and I even tried rabbit meat – it tasted like chicken, in all honesty. Very tasty.
Once we all had the strength to stand up after eating way too much, we wandered to the supermarket to refresh some necessary grocery items for the guesthouse stockpile (crackers, peanut butter, etc.) One of the highlights of the day came after lunch. We drove to one of the lone ice cream shops in Rwanda. Called “Munzozi Nziza” in Kinyarwanda, or “Sweet Dreams,” the shop was started by a women’s cooperative in Butare. These women are an all-female drumming and traditional dance group and they decided to take on a unique project to better their lives and that of their community; as their information sheet says in the shop, to remind the people of Butare how sweet life’s possibilities can be. Since Butare is next to Rwanda’s national university, and therefore hosts many visitors (i.e. Muzungu), they get a lot of business (today was the first day I saw other Westerners in Rwanda). I highly doubt that soft serve chocolate has ever tasted so good. Eventually, we crammed back into the van, Rwandan crafts and groceries in all, and drove to Murambi.
Before the genocide, Murambi was a technical school. In April 1994, the community surrounding the school took refuge there; the mayor of the town encouraged people to flee to the school for safety. The school was, in theory, being guarded by French troops, but in reality, the French were aiding the genocidaires (this only became apparent later). By late April, the Rwandan government and the genocidaires attacked the school, killing over 50,000 of the 55,000 people hiding there. They dug mass graves and left their victims to die. To cover up the graves, the French soldiers built volleyball and basketball courts right over where the people had been buried so no one would ever suspect. Years later, the initial mass grave was unearthed and now, a memorial and museum exists to honor those who died in Murambi.
Unlike the Kigali museum, Murambi is not pictures and videos and beautiful rooms. The technical school has itself been converted into the museum; each of the 24 classrooms of the school now has bodies of those who died there. Before you even see the bodies, you smell them; the entire building reeks of chemicals used to preserve the remains and the inescapable reminder of bones and flesh. Bodies lie on white wooden tables; some are full skeletons, others just heads and small remnants. The worst rooms were those with bodies of children, the smell getting increasingly strong and the wish that it’s all just fake, that nothing you see is real, continues to lurk in the back of your mind. Yet, I knew that everything I saw was in fact a reality, that every bone and every body lying on those tables had a story and a family and a life at one time. It was impossible to take pictures. Not only because I felt disrespectful, but because only seeing it in front of you can make it real. The rooms, the smell, the cold, hard walls and floors; it’s something you don’t believe can or should exist until it’s in front of you.
In order to get back to the main building, we had to walk through a room where the victims’’ clothes and personal affects had been collected. The genocidaires stripped the dead of their clothing and belongings and piled them up separately. After the genocide, survivors came to look for signs of their family and friends by searching through these items. Bosco, who was a member of the RPF and spent a considerable amount of time in Uganda, returned to Murambi to look for his family. He said he was in that room, searching through clothes and shoes. I can’t imagine having to do that.
One of the most difficult parts of the museum for me was during the walk back to the main building, on a gravel path, the grass unkempt and the wind unforgiving, I saw a group of children playing in the field not even twenty yards away. Should they come running toward us, they would see the rooms full of bodies, the mass graves and everything to remind them of their country’s troubled past. They couldn’t have been more than five or six years old, not quite old enough to either know about or understand the genocide, yet they live and play right next to its evidence. Like all other children we see, they pointed and waved, screaming “Muzungu!” Whether or not they realized why we were there and what we were seeing, I don’t know, but their presence reminded me of the strength and rebirth of the Rwandan people. Not once have I seen a Rwandan cry. Bosco didn’t flinch while walking through the memorial; I was very uncomfortable and even more unsure of how to react. How could I become emotional while he stayed so calm? I was so in shock of what I was seeing that I was numb; I couldn’t cry or even speak. Maybe this is how they feel too? Is this how they cope? I don’t think I could ever ask, because I’m not sure how they do it, let alone explain it.
After a short memorial service near the newly built mass graves (to honor the dead; their actual bodies are in the classrooms of the school), we drove to Kigali for dinner. However, before arriving at the restaurant, we made a surprise stop at the Hotel des Milles Collines (Hotel of the Thousand Hills. Rwanda is known as the Land of a Thousand Hills). If you’ve seen the movie Hotel Rwanda (you all should) starring Don Cheadle as hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, the Milles Collines saved thousands of Tutsi lives during the genocide. Situated right outside Kigali, Rusesabagina used his position as hotel manager, and Hutu, to save his friends, neighbors and strangers by hiding them as hotel guests and workers. He was an ordinary man with no real means or even a plan, but he did what he could. This historic site in Rwanda still functions as a hotel (a beautiful one at that), but seeing its famous sign and pulling into the driveway made me think of all the wonderful and inspiring people who risked their own lives to save others during the genocide. After seeing a place like Murambi, the Milles Collines was a stark contrast; a place of hope, of humanity, of selflessness. While French soldiers played volleyball, allowed the genocidaires to kill innocent people and then flee, the staff of the Milles Collines, armed with nothing but a safe full of francs and a bar full of beer, kept the genocidaires at bay, saving as many as they could. Seeing this difference, all in the space of a few hours, was unreal. To learn more about the movie Hotel Rwanda and Paul Rusesabagina, follow the link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1209_041209_hotel_rwanda.html.
The final portion of our day, involved, you guessed it, more food. We went to an Italian restaurant in Kigali called Sol e Luna, which was actually incredibly good. We ate a ton of pizza (and brought some home, of course). My only complaint is that we were charged for take away boxes for our pizza, like we are often charged for brown bags at the market. It was either pay the 500 francs (85 cents) or carry our pizza back in our new handcrafted baskets (or put it in our pockets), so really, it was a worthwhile investment, I think. By the time dinner was over, the skies had opened and it was pouring, so the drive back to the village, through Rwanda’s thousand hills and onto the dirt paths leading to ASYV’s front gates, was quite interesting, to say the least. But once again, Bosco saved the day and got us right back to the guesthouse where we started fourteen hours ago. It’s almost 11 PM now and I need to be up for my 7:30 math class tomorrow, so I will leave you with this thought:
Today was a day of remembrance. Remembrance means never forgetting. It means we face atrocities and never allow them to repeat. It means we stand up together and make a difference. It means we ask and answer some of the hardest questions posed to us, but we know by doing so, we are stronger and more moral people. Remembering is our way to honor those who are gone and to prevent others from facing the same fate. We remember because we should, because we must, because we are human. Never again means never forgetting, and never forgetting forces us to remember. Remember and honor those who perished in Rwanda, and in all genocides that have plagued this world, and if we all swear to never forget, we can achieve never again.
From the land of the “milles collines,”
Elana
No comments:
Post a Comment