The Kigali Genocide Museum and Memorial has an incredible view of the downtown area of Kigali where new high-rise buildings and criss-crossing roads appear clean and efficient. The contrast with the new Kigali and the Kigali found inside the museum is, if not unbelievable, at the very least humbling. There are several mass graves outside of the memorial where we left a large bouquet of red, orange, and yellow roses and a banner that reads “never again”. The people in these graves had been living in Kigali, the very city that is now known for being one of the cleanest in Africa.
Inside the museum we learned about the history of Rwanda, the pre-colonial kingdom of Rwanda, colonization by the Germans and then the Belgians, the ethnic cleansing and tremendous conflict for the years following independence in 1962. Primarily the museum focused on the Genocide, the lead up, and the act during that terrible April in 1994. When reading about these mass atrocities, my heart knots up, my mouth clenches, and sadness fill my body. I cried as I read about the people who bravely and cleverly saved others. I felt so angry when I read that the forces used to evacuate the foreigners that could have stopped the genocide completely- there was that much manpower already.
There was a room for pictures of lost loved ones with row after row of photographs of Rwandan people gone... Then I entered the room with skulls and bones of those who had been killed. There was one display with several cross necklaces which was heart wrenching. Where was God for these people during that April of 1994? Upstairs a gallery had been created with beautiful yellow walls for the children, the future leaders of Rwandan, who had been lost. The genocidaires took no mercy on the children. There were many portraits of children lost; they showed beautiful, happy children. On the plaque below each child read their name, their favorite food and activity, and then how they died, many by beatings or machete. These beautiful children are now gone because of hatred and power.
In the conference room we met to debrief, the podium at the front said Kwibuka…to remember. Twenty years later, Rwandans have turned their country around. The land of a thousand hills has become more prosperous and forward thinking. There have been unique and thoughtful movements of reconciliation in communities where perpetrators and victims now live amongst one another. In addition to the peace they have gained, Rwandans are moving quickly in terms of gender equality, healthcare, education, and economic development. But from what I have learned of Rwanda thus far is that they know that no matter how much progress they make, they must always remember all of those they have lost.