Memorial

I would like to keep these posts reasonably upbeat, but I visited one of the Genocide memorials yesterday. I visited one that was close to Butare, and it is the most raw and realistic of the memorials. This memorial still has the bodies of the victims on display…not in a glass case, but openly sitting on tables in rooms of a former secondary school.

What I saw today was not for the faint of heart. The tour guide was a man who survived the Genocide and was left for dead on that very spot. His wife and children were all killed. He was shot in the head but survived.

For those of you who do not know the history of the Genocide, I would not do it historic justice by trying to explain it. I can tell you what little I know, what I feel, and what I think.

I know that somewhere around 1 million Rwandans were killed during the 1994 Genocide. The spot that we visited yesterday was the spot where about 50 – 60 thousand were killed. The smell of death can still be sensed as you enter the memorial.

Of the 50 to 60 thousand that were brought there to be killed, four survived. One of those being our tour guide who hid in the mountains after being left for dead. He told us that he could not leave the site because that is where his family, wife and children, lay dead. This poor man sees some of the killers on a daily bases.
This man sees them, knows what they have done, but can do nothing about it. He has no comfort. He has no family or friends left to explain this terrible tragedy, and everyone around him hates him because he knows the truth. He knows that men, women, and children were murdered on that very spot. He knows because he was there. It is his curse. He spends everyday of his life retailing the story of how he was shot and his family killed along with thousands of others.

Yesterday was a sad day for me. I still find it hard to fathom that this much evil can exist in our world.

Our tour guide said that he would forgive those who did this, but his torture is that they would never ask. He is one of many Rwandans trying to forget the past, but still facing it everyday.