Day 3: One Nation, Under God

Yesterday, we went off campus to explore Nyamata. We went to the local market which mostly sells food and clothing. It was a long walk from the school but a great opportunity to explore the community where we are staying. Its very rural and there are a lot of trees and A LOT of red dust. The walk to the market was very interesting. Community members loved staring at us and could definitely tell that we were not from Rwanda. When we arrived at the market, there were tons of food everywhere. Fruits, vegetables, you name it. Then we got to the clothing section, and I saw it. Cloth. Beautiful African Cloth. After Molly tried to bargain for a good price, I gave in and ended up spending 20,000 francs for both pieces. It was money well spent.

We decided to leave and go visit a memorial for the Rwandan Genocide. Mr. Flaherty didn't join us because he went to get his laptop from the airport. So we dropped him off at the bus stop and went on our way. Ms. Bayer and Ja'hari insisted on taking bicycle taxi's and chose to bike to the memorial. Me, on the other hand, I don't do well with bikes, so Molly and I decided to walk. We walked all the way back to the memorial. The memorial was one of the mass graves of victims of the genocide. It was at a church where most Tutsis took refuge during that time and attackers barged into the church and massacred everyone inside. Over 800,000 people were killed from the genocide in the span of 3 months and over 10,000 were killed in that church.

When you walk to the main entrance, you can see holes in the ground of where grenades landed. When you look up, you can see hundreds and hundreds of bullet holes through the roof. Inside the church, they have the clothes of the victims laid out everywhere. It was piles of clothing and at the front of the church on one pile was a striped baby shirt. Our guide took us downstairs and we saw skulls of actual victims. They put the skulls on display to show where the machete hacked through the victims heads. They showed bones on the top to show how the bodies were extremely mutilated. At that point, I had already had enough. she pointed out to the side how there was stained blood. It was from the sunday school and the attackers and crushed their heads against the wall. It was still there. Everything from that day was still there. Everything was so graphic and extremely sad. Knowing how much pain was caused during this time. And the entire world knew. But the world decided to stand and watch.

Our guide took us out the church and to the back. It was the mass grave. There was a door where you could go downstairs and there were caskets of actual bodies of victims. All the caskets were on the top row and the rest were just long hallways of bones. Unknown bodies. Thousands of victims just piled on to one another. I chose not to go down but I could see from upstairs what it looked liked. So much grief packed into one church. Into one country.

As I'm typing, I'm trying to figure out the right words to describe how I feel. How to properly reflect. But no words come to mind. I am absolutely speechless when I think about the atrocity that happened in this country. In that one church. I remember Ms. Bayer thanking our guide for the tour. She replied that she will always feel that it is important to remember the genocide. That we, as a world, need to remember these horrible events also that we can prevent them from happing again. Just as we remember the holocaust, or slavery, we need to remember pain so that it is not passed on to others. And I totally agree.