Well I've already told you about our bus trip to Kigali, so we have finally made it to Rwanda! I have decided that all of Africa is covered in a layer of dust. I realize this an incredibly broad generalization and I have so far only been to 2 countries. But I'm pretty sure it's accurate, so I'm going to go ahead and say it. Especially now because it is the dry season. Here in Rwanda, the air is painfully dry and there is dirt and dust everywhere! That is probably why it looks less green and lush than Uganda - all of the trees and plants are covered in dirt! Also, much more of the land looks farmed than in Uganda, and so the crops have all been harvested, so it is not as green.
When we got to Kigali, we took a car to the hotel that was recommended in the Lonely Planet, and also recommended by a guy that we met in Entebbe, called the One Love Club. It is a charitable organization that raises funds to provide prosthetic limbs to people who were victims of the genocide and were left disfigured after 1994. It's a wonderful organization but it was a terrible guesthouse. And our standards are pretty low - we are definitely roughing it and staying in budget places to save our money for our long trip. But after that insane bus ride and such a long day, we were not very happy to be there. So we just tried to get a good night's sleep, and moved onto a different hotel that was in central Kigali, the next morning. It's much better!
Kigali is a very organized city and actually feels like the kind of city that we in Western countries are used to. There are street lights and cross/don't cross lights for pedestrians, and it is much easier to get around. Particularly after the chaos of Kampala, it was a welcome respite for us. We spent the first full day there walking around Kigali, getting some money from the bank, and checking email for a bit. We then went to the office of tourism to arrange for a car to take us to two churches outside of Kigali that have genocide memorials.
So we arranged for that, and our driver, Innocent, picked us up and drove us to the churches. The first was Ntarama, a church about 30 km outside of Kigali, where over 10,000 people were killed during the genocide. A guide told us a little bit about it and walked us around, and inside the church - a red brick building - were shelves of skulls and other bones of people who were found inside the church, around it, and in nearby areas. Also in the church the clothes of the victims were hung all around the room, and other belongings that the victims brought with them to the church were stacked in another corner. It was an eerie sight and heartbreaking to see. The walls of the church had huge holes where grenades were thrown into the church. We also saw the little building where the priests used to dress, which also had grenade holes and where people were killed as well. The kitchen behind the church was where people were burnt alive, and you can still see the burn marks on the ceiling. Purple and white cloths hang around the outside of the church - purple is the color of mourning. It is shocking to be standing at the site where such an unspeakable thing could happen. I've read about the genocide quite a bit, but it doesn't prepare you for seeing the remains of the victims. Most of the skulls had holes in them where machetes had struck them, even the tiniest children.
The second memorial, a few kilometers away, was Nyamata, which was also a church where more than 25,000 people were killed. It is similar to Ntarama, but it is bigger, and the victims' bones were not in the church. There were bullet holes in the tin ceiling, where the Interahamwe shot at the people in the church, not to kill them, but to torture them. There are clothes and personal belongings stacked on pews throughout the church, and bloodstains on the brick walls. It is an appalling sight to see and brings the atrocities close to home. It is hard to believe that this happened only 16 years ago. Behind the church, there are mass graves where more than 45,000 people are buried, and one of the mass graves is open for people to walk down into.
Talk about eerie. There are shelves and shelves of skulls and bones stacked in the tomb on one side, and on the other are caskets draped with purple cloth. It was pretty creepy so I didn't stay down there long - it was a very small space - but I think it is important to pay respects to these people who were so brutally and inexplicably killed. We left donations at the two memorials and headed back into Kigali. We wandered a bit, had some dinner, and then washed our clothes back at the hotel.
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