Memorial Week

April, the month of rain, the month of mourning for many people, if not all Rwandese people...

Up until now we haven't written anything about the Memorial. Really we are 'outsiders' on this subject. That's why we first had the idea to ask one of our Rwandese fellow students to write something about it, but it's so hard to capture on paper, even spoken it is difficult to talk about... so I'll try to mention something here anyway.

Our last week in Butare was a week with a very strange feeling. Shops all closed in the afternoon, making of Butare a kind of ghost city. When travelling and driving into a village you would notice prisoners (in their pink uniform) putting up wooden 'entrance gates' covered with green leaved branches, with on it a big purple colored banner with texts such as 'genocide, never again'. At night and in the afternoon Memorial services were held; also in the University students would come together to talk about the past, to remember deceiced family members, to share their sorrow... Families gather with the members that did survive the genocide.

We visited the Murambi Memorial site, near Gikongoro. Believe me, not something to look forward to. It's were there was a technical school, a hideway for many Rwandains (Tutsi, moderate Hutus,...), adults, children, whole families. About 30.000 people were killed here during the genocide of whom the bodies are preserved with pouder, in 24 rooms of the former school building. We were guided through them by one of the only survivers (he pointed out the shot wound leaving a big scar on his forehead). There are no words to describe the horror of seeing all those bodies lying there, children of all ages with cracked open skulls of the machete that hit them, adults missing body parts... They were all killed due to the hatred that was created within the rwandese population; and the hatred is visible in the very violent way they were killed. One room shows all the clothes of the murdered people; it immediately makes you think of the image of the clothes of the murdered Jews in the German concentration camps.
Outside, the site where the mass graves were are indicated; also indicated is where the French that came 'to stop the genocide' (finally recognised as being a genocide!) played volleyball, just beside the mass graves, after the murdering had taken place... Shivers run down your spine.

On Thursday, our last evening in Butare, we invited everybody for a drink; a difficult time to organise something cheerful, although people were very happy with our invitation. After a short time of sitting down and having some drinks, Grace -a nurse that followed the classes of gym tonique with us- said to me: 'Tjalina, if you'll excuse me, I'm very tired, I'm sorry, I've been crying all day. I really wanted to come and say goodbye to you. But it's so hard for me to smile or have fun...'. Tears in her eyes... Did I mind her not being in a party mood...

'Amohoro' means 'peace' in Kinyarwanda, it's what we wrote down in the Murambi Memorial 'guest book'...

Genocide, never again.