Unforgettable

Some of us got up bright and early to go to the 7am mass at the cathedral in Butare, the national cathedral of Rwanda. Rwanda is about 70% Catholic, so it is a very important aspect of Rwandan culture. It was beautiful, and it didn't matter in the slightest that it was in Kinyarwanda and I wasn't able to understand a word. One of my greatest memories of Rwanda will be from mass, when it was time to say "Peace be with you" to all your neighbors. I realized that I had absolutely no idea what the equivalent phrase was in Kinyarwanda, so I very hesitatingly reached to shake the hand of the lady next to me. Something must have tipped her off that I wasn't from Rwanda (might have been the fact that we were the only muzungus in the cathedral) and instead she said, very shyly with a smile, "Peace?" For some reason, that little effort to connect with me left a big impression on me.

After mass we set off for Marambi Hill Memorial, which was one of the most intense experiences of my time in Rwanda so far.

First a little history... In 1994 a school was in the process of being built on Marambi Hill. When the genocide started, people from all around the region were sent to the school and told that it would be a safe place for them to stay. They were sent by local leaders, including teachers and pastors, to one of the most horrific events of the genocide. Somewhere around 50,000 people were crammed into a collection of 10 or so buildings, where they hid for two weeks without any regular access to food and water. They were given a few police officers supposedly for their protection, but who in reality were there to keep everyone penned in.

After two weeks of sporadic attacks on the hill, the genocidaires came in full force, throwing grenades into the school buildings and emptying machine guns.

There are 4 known survivors from Marambi Hill.

50,000 people is the population of Ames.

Now Marambi Hill is the site of one of the most grisly memorials imaginable. Around 27,000 bodies have been exhumed from the mass graves which were dug by the genocidaires and have now been given a proper burial, but there are still many more to find and bury. There are also over 1,000 bodies which are not buried, and instead sit in 24 classrooms where the murdering took place. This is how the memorial works - you walk around the grounds and look into different classrooms, seeing skeletons strewn througout each room in the same position they were found in. The bodies of children are always closest to the door. It is the starkest, most blatant way of saying that this must never, ever, ever happen again.

The sites of the mass graves were bodies were thrown after the massacre are also marked on the unfinished school's grounds. We were told that many of the people thrown into the graves were not dead yet. There is also a marker for where the French army set up a volleyball court during Operation Turquoise, when France supposedly sent in an army to stop the genocide but in reality was protecting the genocidaires, who the French government had invested a lot of money and weapons in. The volleyball pitch is about 30 feet away from the mass graves.

After touring the memorial, we met with a man who works there and is one of the four survivors from the hill. He told us how he went out to fight the genocidaires when they attacked, and returned to the room he had hid in with his family only to find his wife and children murdered. He was shot in the head, but somehow managed to crawl his way to another hill that night and slowly made his way to Burundi. There is literally a hole on the top of his head where the bullet still sits in his skull.

The visit was, in a word, overwhelming.

From Marambi we had a long, somber drive back to Kigali, which gave us time to recover our thoughts and emotions.

Back in Kigali we headed to dinner with Elizabeth, the principal of FAWE school for girls and one of our main helpers in organizing our time in Rwanda. We had dinner at the home of one of the teachers of FAWE, and it was pretty much a full-out party. In addition to the 15 of us on the trip they hosted a few neighbors, our drivers, a few students from FAWE, and a couple teachers as well.

While we sat and talked in the sitting room of the house, someone turned out the lights and a birthday cake was brought out to me. After listening to the happy birthday song sung in three different languages, I happily blew out my candles. To my surprise, the singing continued, and I was told it wouldn't stop until I “celebrated my birthday”. I was thoroughly confused, but since a knife was brought out to me I cut the cake, not knowing what else to do. The singing continued. As I was looking around without a clue of what to do, one of the girls from FAWE walked over, took a piece of it, and spoon-fed it to me like a child. I was pretty much speechless, and was laughing as I tried to force my cake down. I told everyone we would have to count that as a learning experience in cultural differences.

After everyone had taken some cake, Jeremiah, one of our drivers, came over and presented a gift to me. It was igisoro, a local board game I had been attempting to buy for the past week or so, and a hand made Rwandan card signed by everyone in attendance. The willingness of these relative strangers to make a special plan for my birthday, and the fun of learning cultural differences firsthand was an awesome experience for me.

After a traditional Rwandan dinner and a little bit of speech-giving, we said our goodbyes and set off. My new friend in Rwanda who took Andrew and I out on Friday night had agreed to show us around for my birthday. Almost our entire group went out, and we had a blast celebrating my birthday across the world.

From morning mass, to Marambi Hill, to a surprise celebration, my birthday was a rollercoaster of emotions, and the most memorable birthday I've ever had.