Friday, we went to the Ntarama Genocide Memorial, which was a new one for me. It is the most sobering thing to hear what happened to people in the place that it happened. To see the crushed skulls and stains on the walls from where people were brutally murdered…wow.
In the afternoon we visited a reconciliation village where we heard testimonies from both survivors, as well as perpetrators of the genocide. It was yet another extremely sobering experience. It still challenges my understanding to see how these folks live together and embrace each other. In the past 18 years that they have been living together, they have talked and worked through the issues that they had with each other, meaning that some of them killed family members of others in the village. It’s humbling to listen to their stories and be in their presence. We also had some Fanta’s with them and shared a time of singing. They sang a couple of songs for us, and we sang a couple for them, which was another unique experience. Then we bought some woven baskets from them, which is one of the major ways that they make money for themselves. It seems that lots of visitors (apparently mostly Americans) come here to hear their stories so they have learned that they can capitalize on it by selling things, which I think is good on their part, since they are telling their stories for others to hear. The continuous theme we hear in every place we go is that they want all want to make sure people outside Rwanda know that it was a GENOCIDE that happened and not just a civil war, not in-fighting, none of that. There are genocide deniers that still exist and continue to tell the message that it was not genocide, but just a civil war or something else. So I will continue to believe and teach that it was genocide. Extremist Hutus tried to wipe out the Tutsi ethnicity as well as any moderate Hutus.
This day has been very heavy but super impactful for everyone, I think.
Friday night Lisa and Lilly and I went to here went to a local bar called the Green Corner Bar to hear a performing group. The main singer of this group is Christian; he’s also the guy who taught our dance lesson last week, leads the student drumming group on Tuesdays, and organizes the dance rehearsals on Wednesday nights. It was cool to see them do their regular Friday night performance!
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