Why We're Here: Mayingye, Nyamata, Murambi

FYI: there are some very disturbing images discussed, but not shown.

We chose to come to Rwanda because I wanted to "experience" the genocide; to be able to tell my students that I've been there, that I've seen the sites, smelled the smells, walked on the grass where evil existed.  This journey began at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, a place Ellen explained with more depth and emotion that I could possibly muster.
 

Homes in Mayingye

It continued and peaked on Monday, when Benon arranged for us to visit the village of Mayingye, a so-called imidugudu, or "reconciliation village."  These villages have become symbolic of the entire reconciliation effort since 1994.  In Mayingye, survivors of the genocide live and work alongside perpetrators of the genocide--often the very people who murdered their families--in apparent harmony.  Thanks to Benon and a man named Guma, who works with a Christian Fellowship program to help facilitate the processes of forgiveness among the people, Ellen and I were able to sit down with 4 individuals-- two perpetrators (or should I use the word murderers?) and two survivors.

Me, Janet, her baby Natasha, and Benon

We "interviewed" (that is to say, listened to) Matthias, Innocent, Janet and Frederick individually for about two hours, as they discussed their lives before, during and after the genocide.  We listened to them share with us their fears-- Innocent, who feared for years that perpetrators would come "finish their work" and drank heavily to help himself sleep; Matthias, who feared that he would never be forgiven by God, his victims, or himself.  They shared their incredible stories of reconciliation and how a pastor named Gahigi facilitates meetings between victims and perpetrators.  They shared their common belief that giving and receiving forgiveness has allowed them to move on with their lives, and the jaw-dropping revelation that Janet has no compunction about leaving her baby Natasha alone with the man who murdered her parents, just has he has no compunction about leaving his children with her.  They shared their impassioned concern about the future--mentioned specifically by three of them--that people are denying or could deny that a genocide happened in Rwanda.  And they shared their suggestions for what we should bring back to our students in America: in Innocent's words: "teach love."

I'm fascinated, but generally pretty intellectual about religion; I see its value and, as a history teacher, I've seen the many ways its teachings and implementation can go horribly awry.  But I walked away from that tiny house in Mayingye thinking one thing: if "God's work" exists, then this is it.

Conflict renewed in Rwanda: introducing Silly Bands.

Ellen and I did our best to offer small tokens of appreciation to those with whom we had spoken-- t-shirts and cds for the adults, Silly Bands and candy for the children.  We left Mayingye on a spiritual high, something that I don't know that I had felt before.

The feeling was short-lived.  Just down the road, we were pulled over by the police, who were manning a routine roadblock (these are all over Rwanda).  A large uniformed man with an AK-47 inspected the outside of our car, while another asked us to see our passports.  "This is no problem," Benon said as he handed over his passport.  Thankfully, I happened to have ours on me that day (and every day since) and I handed them over.  The officer smiled at Ellen's distinctly unsmiling terrorist picture, gave me a thumbs up, and handed them back.  It all felt incredibly wrong to have just driven away from the embodiment of post-genocide reconciliation and right into a hallmark of a police state.  My stomach churned.    

We proceeded to a nearby memorial site, Nyamata, which is a converted church.  This is typical: one of the more horrifying realities of this genocide is that hundreds of thousands of Tutsis who sought refuge in Catholic churches (something they had successfully done during conflicts in generations past) were then murdered in the churches, often with the assistance of Catholic clergymen.  This particular memorial at Nyamata is brutal: there are mass graves outside, much like the ones in Kigali, which house over four hundred thousand remains, but inside are thousands and thousands of pieces of victims' clothing, stacked up on the church pews as a stark reminder of the humanity and individuality of those who died.  Even though the memorial was technically closed, a young docent whose entire family was murdered at Nyamata allowed me to walk down the steps into one of the mass graves to see the hundreds of coffins, draped with purple shrouds.  Inside these catacombs, there are also simple wooden shelves holding thousands of skulls and bones, many broken or damaged from the murders.

When we came back up, Benon, whose cheerfulness is generally unflappable, began to speak sorrowfully and angrily about how God could allow something like this to happen and how justice had not been done.  After what we had been through at Mayingye, it was heartbreaking.  We were silent for a while on the ride home.

Ellen and I decided to go to a restaurant called Heaven for dinner-- it is run by some American expats and is pretty much a magnet for white tourists-- we needed to spend some time somewhere that felt a little familiar.  The food was pretty good, and the owner, Josh, talked with us for a while about living in Rwanda.

We got out early on Tuesday because Benon was adamant that we visit another memorial site in Murambi.  "If you want to understand the genocide, you have to visit Murambi" he pleaded.  So we agreed to make the three-hour trek out there.  Along for the ride was a college student introduced to both Benon and us by Dr. Pasick named Jean d'Amour.  He's studying Biology at the University of Butare, which is on the way to Murambi.  His father, a lawyer, was an active resistor during the genocide, but Jean had never been able to speak about that with him until Dr. Pasick interviewed them for Stories for Hope.  It's made a tremendous, palpable impact on his life and his relationship with his father.  Plus, he's just a sweet kid.

Murambi might be the most difficult genocide memorial there is in Rwanda (or anywhere, for that matter).  It used to be a technical school situated on an improperly beautiful hill, which was in the process of being rebuilt when the genocide happened.  When it began, Tutsis were encouraged by the government to assemble there so that they would be safe, and then over fifty thousand of them were murdered with grenades, machine guns, and handheld weapons like machetes.  Now the old buildings of the school house 848 bodies, on display in 24 rooms, treated with lime to keep them from totally decomposing.  Many are still in the positions in which they died: arms up to protect themselves, screaming.  There is one room full of the corpses of dozens of babies and children.  This is the ultimate evidence that what happened in Rwanda was not a civil war, or an evenly-matched ethnic conflict, but a genocide.

Mass graves at Murambi

As someone who studies memorials, I'm still not sure about displays like the ones we saw at Murambi and Nyamata.  While I understand the stated purpose of showing the world the bodies of dead children, I often wonder if it achieves that purpose.  Regardless, I will never, ever forget the smell of those rooms in Murambi.  Benon was right about that-- I have a different understanding of genocide now.  It was particularly moving to be there with Jean, who had never been before and was very emotional.

After Murambi, we had seen enough.  Between those sites and our unforgettable experience at Mayingye, my goal has been achieved.  Thankfully, the rest of our time here has been and will be spent on happier things.  On the ride home, we shared some of our snacks with Benon and Jean.  They both accepted a Nuts n Honey snack bar, which they both ate a piece at a time, and described as "very...sweet."  We're pretty sure they hated them, but courageously finished them anyway.  Everyone in the world, it turns out, likes Goldfish.