Genocide Memorial

 Today was hard, I'm not going to lie. I don't remember feeling so much sorrow in my heart in a long time as I did today. I want to give this prelude because, while my first true day in Africa was beautiful, awe inspiring it was also a very emotionally draining one.

Caution: graphic and sad

We arrived at the memorial, it the location was beautiful. We entered and viewed each exhibit divided into three. One into the start and actual parts of the genocide, the second about other genocides and the third was called the "Children's Room". Every room broke your heart, the raping, slaughtering, dismembering, acts of hatred were terrible, pictures of people dead, dismembered, mutilated. Stories of the survivors playing on the walls with subtitles. My heart felt broken. We walked into rooms off old photographs of people lost, and I felt as someone in my group did that I needed to look at every pictures because I believed every life needed to be acknowledged. The last room in the building I wandered into was all the belongings found at the massacre sights. The one item that seemed so difficult to look at was a child's spiderman bed sheet hanging like a ghost in a glass room. Seeing it, I thought of a little boy probably running around pretending to be a superhero-now slaughtered. 

The 2nd part talked about other genocides, and the quote that hit me reading was.. 

The room that truly shattered my heard was the "Children's Room", in each room was a picture of a child, some infants some toddlers, some siblings. Underneath each photo listed their name, favorite food, game, hero, something cute or funny and the last bit, how they were murdered.

 A picture of a precious little girl in a white dress and big doe eyes smiling stared at me, underneath written favorite food milk, favorite toy her doll, loved playing with her father and lastly "smashed against wall". I remember my world pause in that moment tears flooding my eyes. And no pictures, no murders easier "stabbed in eyes", "machete in mothers arms", "shot in the head", "drown", "buried alive". And looking at these innocent eyes I just couldn't grasp, how anyone could kill something so pure so innocent. I had to leave. I felt my heart my shatter with one more victims face, one more child's smiling face.

The difference between this genocide and the Holocaust and why I find this almost worse was the use of close contact killing with machetes. The Holocaust, while horrific and massive, dehumanized people, killing them with machines, guns, gas, etc. But this genocide the killings, the people did not dehumanize anything. This genocide was not blind killings, but this was Hutus killing Tutsis, neighbors killing neighbors, wives being forced to kill their family before being killed themselves. Humans staring into the other eyes of humans with such hate and slaughtering them with machetes. 

Yet there is something so beautiful about the Rwandan people, their ability to move on, not forget of course, but keep living. And not just living, but surviving. To look out into a crowd of people and know that nearly everyone over the age of 20 has their own story. Yet are able to still manage and function as a society, to not hate, not let revenge killings happen. They are far better people than I.

The whole world failed Rwanda…

 Someone in my group today told a story of her experience flying over to Rwanda. A man asked her first if it was her first time visiting Rwanda, she said yes. He responded to her "Why do you come now? Not 20 years ago." And walked off into the plane. And the truth is we as a country stood by and did nothing. No one really did. In total towards the end we sent 50 troops.. Over 1 million lives lost and we sent 50 people.