Rwanda Adventures (Part II)

So I need to finish wrapping up my sightseeing in Rwanda. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I traveled to Gisenyi, which is in the western part of Rwanda, about 2 km from the DRC and Goma the capital of DRC.  The town is located right on Lake Kivu, which is beautiful.  I was able to travel around with investigators and attorneys interviewing witnesses for my case.  It was interesting to meet witnesses, and hear their story.  I also got to see the crime scenes from my case.  After seeing this area, I know that my work will be more interesting as I am able to imagine these places in my head as I am doing work back at the ICTR. 




Lake Kivu

 

On Thursday, October 6, my birthday, I decided to go and visit one of the church memorials about 30 km outside of Kigali.  The church was located in the town of Nyamata.  It was definitely an adventure just to get to Nyamata.  I had to take a moto-taxi to the huge bus park, which upon seeing the picture below, you will understand the overwhelming feeling of trying to find the one bus to Nyamata, it is essentially like finding a needle in a haystack.  Anyways, after a few minutes of searching, a stranger, who noticed I was definitely a foreigner with no idea where I was going, helped me find the correct bus.  I paid about $1.50 for the 45 minute ride, and was dropped off in the middle of nowhere.  Rwandans speak French as a second language, so it is hard to find people who speak English.  A moto-taxi driver stopped after I waved him down, and for about 10 minutes, using hand gestures, English, and lots of pointing to my guidebook, we were finally about to get an understanding that I wanted to get to the Nyamata Memorial and that I wanted him to drive me there on his motorcycle.  This Memorial was very different from the other two I had visited earlier in the week; however, this one was just as powerful.  It was left basically the same after the Tutsi were killed at the church, so there were hundreds of piles of clothing laying around on the long wooden pews.  As a religious person myself, I found it unbearably sad that such tragedy happened in a church.  These people had flocked to this central symbol of hope in their community only to find themselves trapped and brutally murdered.  There were also mass graves there, and I believe it is believed that about 10,000 people died within the walls the confines of the church. 

The Bus Station...where approximately 1 million buses are parked.

Nyatama Church Memorial (outside of Kigali)

After visiting the church, I found a bus and made my way back to Kigali.  I went to a souvenir shop to find some postcards, then I went to a really great coffee shop/cafe.  At the cafe, I ran into another intern who had been in Rwanda for the week on a site visit.  He and I had lunch together and walked around the city for a while.  We also made plans to meet up later that evening to go out for a proper "birthday" dinner.  We decided on Ethiopian food as I had heard there was a fantastic Ethiopian place in town, and the other intern had never tried Ethiopian before.  Dinner was wonderful; there was so much food.  I even got a birthday song from the owner; it was a very weird/random song, but a birthday song nonetheless and very nice of him to sing for me.  After dinner, I went back to the hotel and got some sleep.  I was exhausted and had to make a early flight the next morning.




My 24th Birthday Dinner...it was fantastic. 

 

Overall, I loved Rwanda.  It was beautiful, green, lush, and a nice break from dusty, little Arusha.  I think it was wonderful to get to see some of the sights, and definitely helped me understand the genocide/my work more.  I had a wonderful time visiting, and the people of Rwanda are incredible.

Rwanda Adventures (Part I)

Since arriving back in East Africa, I knew one adventure that needed to happen during my time here was a trip to Rwanda.  Luckily, as an intern in Office of the Prosecutor, some interns are lucky enough to be allowed to join attorneys and investigators to do a "mission."  This usually entails meeting with witnesses, visiting crime scenes, and collecting other relevant information to assist in the indictment/trial.  I was told by my supervisor that I could attend a mission in Rwanda.  Therefore, I arrived in Rwanda last Friday, September 30, and will be leaving on Friday, October 7. 

Last weekend, two of my roommates, another OTP intern, and I did some sightseeing around Kigali and Rwanda.  On Saturday, Jane and I decided to go to Butare and visit the Gikongoro Genocide Memorial.  This village is very small and would be forgettable if not for the horrors that took place here during the genocide.  The memorial is an old technical college.  During the genocide, refugees flocked here in the hopes of protection.  This was very hard to see, and it is one of the most powerful genocide memorials as hundreds of bodies have been exhumed, preserved with powdered lime, and appear exactly as they did when killed.  As our travel book stated, "Gikongoro can be overwhelming, and not everyone can stomach it for more than a few minutes; it is however, another poignant reminder to all of us of what came to pass here, and why it must never be allowed to happen again."  As an ICTR intern, it was something Jane and I both felt we needed to see and experience.  We read and work on the genocide for hours every day; however, I was only seven years old when the genocide happened.  I have no recollection of hearing about it on the news.  Sometimes I feel very detached from what happened here, and this was a powerful reminder of why I wanted to do this internship.  We had to take a 2.5 hr bus ride to Butare, then a 30 minute bus ride to Gikongoro, and then a 2.5 km motor-taxi ride to the Memorial.  I am deathly afraid of motorcycles, so I took a picture of me on it, just to prove that I did it.  Here are some pictures of Butare and our day at the Memorial....



Jane and I after visiting the memorial




Riding a moto-taxi, maybe the most exciting/scary thing I've done in Africa thus far!




Gikongora Memorial

 On Sunday, we met up with some other interns from the ICTR to visit the sights in Kigali.  We went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial which is where the remains of around 250,000 Tutsi people are buried.  It was a very interesting exhibit.  Upstairs after leaving the Rwandan genocide section, there was an exhibit on all the genocides that have happened all over the world.  I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about genocide in general and about all the genocides that have happened all over the world.  On a plaque at the genocide memorial, I read a quote that really moved me, the quote said, " When they said 'never again' after the holocaust, was it meant for some people and not for others," said by Rwandan Apollon Katahizi, who survived the genocide.  Again, it was a powerful experience to see the memorial and try to imagine how scary it was to be here during that short time in 1994.  After seeing the Kigali Genocide Memorial, we went to the Belgian Solider Memorial.  This site commemorates the place where 10 Belgian soldiers were killed trying to protect the "moderate" Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana.  This was one of the first acts committed at the beginning of the genocide as Hutu extremists killed not only Tutsi but Hutu moderates or Tutsi sympathizers.  We ended our day at Hotel des Mille Collines, the hotel portrayed in the movie Hotel Rwanda.  Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of the hotel, opened the hotel, allowing Tutsi refugees shelter in the hotel during the genocide.  He managed to bribe the Interahamwe militia with money and alcohol, which allowed him to provide food/water and safety to Tutsi inside the hotel.  It was crazy to get drinks poolside and know that in 1994 this was such a significant place.  I ended up staying in this hotel a few nights later as a birthday present from my parents.  And during that night, I ended up getting a taxi to the supermarket to get some snacks for the rest of the week.  My taxi driver told me that he was one of the Tutsi refugees that took shelter in the Mille Collines.  He was just a small boy, but because of Paul Rusesabagina's sacrifice, he and his immediate family all survived the genocide.  Now, many years later, the taxi driver sits outside the Hotel on a daily basis giving rides to tourists, telling his story.  Very powerful.  Here are some pictures from that busy day. 

Kigali Memorial Centre

One of many mass graves on site.

Belgian Memorial--bullet holes where the soldiers were killed.

Rwandan and Belgian Flag

THE Hotel Rwanda

I am still in Rwanda, and plan on spending the day tomorrow (my 24th birthday!) seeing two more memorials, doing some shopping, and getting a pedicure at a fancy hotel in Kigali.  I will head back to Arusha on Friday morning.  I will try and update the blog again before I leave to finish telling about my trip here in Rwanda.  Hope you enjoy the blog, I feel like I could have written so much more, and maybe once I get back to Arusha and have more time to reflect upon my time here, I will.  Much love from Rwanda!