This is a journal entry from a visit to Murambi memorial, when i was in Kigali last year. It was truly the most emotional experience i have ever had.
March 23. Tuesday. 11:15 am
So yesterday was one of the most emotionally powerful days of my entire life. We went to visit the genocide memorial in Murambi. In 1994 Murambi was being built to be a school and during the genocide many Tutsi’s were told to go and find protection and safety there, when in fact it was only aimed to gather them together in one place in order to massacre them easier. The people who went there went for 2 weeks without food or water before 500,000 people were killed there by Hutus using machetes, hoes, clubs… The memorial is extremely powerful because it is very….raw? Everything is out in the open, nothing is behind a glass case and has descriptions or information alongside it. I am not sure how to adequately express how the museum is set up but basically you go from room to room (they were initially set up to be classrooms or dorms) and in these rooms are tables with rows of completely untouched dead bodies lying there. Some of the skeletons still had clothing on them and there is also a very particular smell you cant help but notice when there.
When we walked up the hallway and people started entering the rooms with the dead bodies I slowly felt that I was losing control over my emotions. I peeked into the first room and when I saw the skeletons and was able to notice that some of the skeletons were those of small children my body immediately had a strong physical reaction and I knew I was not going to be able to go inside the rooms. I broke down into tears and as I walked down the hallway I was immediately comforted by a woman who worked at the memorial and who was one of the very few survivors of Murambi. It felt so incredibly bizarre that someone who had actually experienced such a horrific event and who had endured so much pain and possibly lost family members was comforting me! But it was at the same time so incredibly inspiring the strength that this woman had to be able to embrace me and console me when it should be me doing that to her!
After that I spent sometime walking around the school and taking in the amazingly breathtaking view around me of the beautiful Rwandan hills surrounding the buildings and I just couldn’t understand how something so incredibly horrific could take place somewhere so beautiful. The only thing running through my mind was “this makes no sense this makes no sense this makes no sense… I am studying something that makes no sense at all!” One of the survivors there who worked at the memorial was a man who was shot at (you could clearly see the hole the gun shot had left in his head), was thought to be dead and therefore left alone by the killers, and who had lost 5 of his children there. Yet he had the strength to continue on and come back to the site where his life changed forever in order to share with the rest of the world what had happened.
Right now I am a little frustrated with everything I have written because it in no way describes my experience. I will never ever ever forget witnessing a portion of the aftermath of such a brutal incomprehensible act and will never ever understand how such a large population of a country could ever find the motivation to mudrer their neighbors, doctors, students, patients, teachers, friends and fellow members of humanity. It is something I have not been able to process so I have chosen to, for the time being, focus on the beauty of the strength and hope that so many of the survivors of the genocide, who have lost parents, children, brother and sisters, are able to find within themselves not only in order to move on, but also to forgive others.
Although part of me was troubled walking around the memorial and felt that it may be disrespectful to those who died to have their bodies out for display, I do think that it speaks the truth of what happened and should be a reminder to each and every person of the consequence of discrimination and disunity between people. Today almost everything in the Rwanda is described in relation to the genocide and it is unbelievable how many lives have been altered and how many people have lost their loved ones and homes. One thing that I kept thinking about after coming back from the memorial was the children of the Hutu refugees we met in the refugee camp in Uganda. When we spoke to the refugees there (many of whom had escaped from prison and could very possibly have committed countless murders during the genocide) they told us that they do not teach the children in the camp about the genocide. They said that this was because they didn’t want them to feel any guilt or blame for being a Hutu. I feel very strongly that speaking the truth, as gruesome and as sad it may be, is completely necessary for the healing of this country, as well as in order to ensure that history never repeats itself. I cannot imagine being a child born and raised in a refugee camp outside of my home country and not understanding why it is I live there and am unable to go back “home”. What happens when these children grow older and then hear about the genocide? I can barely imagine what it must feel to be a child who knows that his father has killed many in his community, possibly even his own schoolmates’ family members. There is so much I just cannot wrap my head around.
Earlier today we also visited the Womens Association which is made up of women who have lost their husbands in the genocide, as well as women who’s husbands are in prison for partaking in the implementation of the genocide. The women explained that at first they found it extremely difficult to look in the eyes of each other (knowing that the other’s husband killed yours, or even knowing that it was your husband that took the life of the other woman’s husband and that you did nothing to prevent it). Today however their children play together, they work together & laugh together and it truly goes to show that forgiveness is always possible and necessary for a community to heal itself (especially in a country where almost everyone has lost a family member in the genocide or has themselves or their family member committed murder).
