Liberation Day

Yesterday, July 4th, was a holiday in Rwanda: Liberation Day.  It celebrates the defeat of the previous regime (Interhamwe or Hutu Power) by the RPF army, subsequently ending the 1994 Rwandan genocide. One hundred days before Liberation day, Rwandans begin their time of remembrance, when posters similar to the one below are put up all over the city to commemorate the time of reflection of the horrid past events and death of loved ones.  It also serves as a way of helping to prevent was is termed "genocide ideology" or the growth of hatred based on ethnicity or specific affiliations.  This year was the 22nd that has passed since the end of the Rwandan genocide.

Here is an article that describes the celebration that took place 2 years ago, for the 20th anniversary of Liberation Day in Rwanda. 

In honor of both the American 4th of July and Rwandan Liberation day, Lizzy baked banana pancakes and I ate them:  

To cry

My morning at the clinic was started with some somber faces, perhaps in light of the theft that Chantal experienced yesterday.  However, as I sat down outside her office to wait for her, a women exited from the trauma counselor's office in tears.  Wrapped in kitenge and clutching a black, fake-leather purse, she heaved herself into the white plastic chair outside his office and let her head fall into her hands.  As her shoulders heaved from the tears that were springing forth, I fetched a napkin from my purse and brought it to her. "Morakoze" she uttered and I felt helpless, not even knowing the correct response in Kinyarwanda.  Leaving her privacy to cry and be sad, I stared back at my computer and recalled the disappointing news that has surrounded the last 24 hours.  Lizzy's bitten feet, Chantal's stolen computer....and I remembered that while our pain can heal with some medicine and the purchase of a replacement computer, hers was springing from a much deeper place of hurt and sadness.  As Chantal arrived, she floated to the crying woman's side and placed her hand on her back, guiding her into her office.  The woman shuffled in slowly and with the weight of a heart that holds more grief that I would wish upon my worst enemy.  The things that these women have experienced.

Kigali Genocide Memorial Museum

On Saturday, Lizzy and I walked to the Kigali Genocide Memorial Museum.  It was about an hour walk from our house but a great excuse to meander down the dirt streets that are so frequently avoided by wazungu in Kigali and snoop around MiniMarts that sell the million types of buscuits I was addicted to in Tanzania.  

Upon reaching the museum, we were guided into a 5 minute movie with brief interviews of Rwandans who had experienced the genocide and their feeling behind the construction of a memorial.  Kigali Genocide Memorial Museum(called Kigali Memorial by the locals) was built in 1999 to explain the genocide, provide a final resting place for those who were victims of the genocide and, serve as memorial that friends and family members could visit for prayer and peace. 

Although the museum is free to enter, you need to pay to take pictures ($20) or listen to a guided recording ($15).  Well-organized and staffed, the museum leads you step by step through the events and propoganda that brought about neighbors killing neighbors, friends killing friends and entire families being wiped up over a span of 100 days.  The numbers are staggering - some 2,000 people per minute were murdered.  The international community not only failed to act, but when they did, they inadvertently (or some may argue advertently) exaccerbated the situation.  More than 250,000 victims are buried at the Memorial Museum.

As you move from display to display, you see quotes, pictures, stories, videos and remains of the casualties that lost their lives in the tradegy.  One room consisted of hanging clothes, rows of skulls and piles of bones (not unlike the museum at Auschwitz) that provide even a meager glimpse into the sheer horror and magnitude of what happened in 1994.  The current belief is that over 1 million people (mainly Tutsi but some Hutu's as well) were slaughtered during the genocide.  Today in Rwanda it is illegal to say the words "Tutsi" or "Hutu" or identify people based on their ethnic group.

Family and friends gather around the coffins and pictures at a service of several
 genocide victums who are about to be buried at the Memorial Museum.

Lizzy and I recorded our reactions to the museum in this brief video.