So we’re back among you by now, glad to be home but already missing Rwanda as we get back to the daily grind of school and work; but our blog is yet incomplete, missing the final full day of our trip. So here it is:
Day Nine--Thursday, January 5, 2012
We began our last full day with the REACH Rwanda staff in front of their beautiful office.
We spent the better part of the day in the town of Nyamata, in the Bugesera district in southeastern Rwanda. Our first stop was at the town’s genocide memorial, a small brick building that once stood as a Catholic church before genocide struck. Over ten thousand souls died here on the church grounds, terrified men, women, and children who believed they could find shelter and safety within a house of God. But, as it was all over Rwanda, the church and its clergy offered no protection and, in fact, many in the church helped to bring about the genocide with their words and actions.
Memorial signs outside the Roman Catholic church where 10,000 people died.
The doors to the church at Nyamata.
The people taking shelter inside damaged them so that those committing the genocide could not enter. The murderers, tipped off by priests who helped orchestrate the genocide, used grenades to blast through the doors (see the hole in the right door and scarring on the floor) so they could get inside to kill everyone--women, children, and men.
Looking through the doors into the church, now decommissioned.
The purple ribbons symbolize mourning.
As we stepped through the doorway, the concrete beneath our feet scarred by a grenade blast that tore through the barricade that the refugees had hastily constructed, we beheld the musty interior of the church. Piles of bloodstained, dusty clothes lined the pews like some ancient congregation had been raptured here long ago, a last testament to the thousands who had been shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned to death within the bullet-pocked walls. Our guide led us downstairs to a small chamber that had been constructed since the genocide, home to a glass display that housed dozens of skulls, bones, and far below the grave of a pregnant woman who was raped by 29 men and then murdered in a most horrific way. Because of the severity of her story, her grave is considered to be representative of all of the women who suffered such crimes during the genocide.
The blood-stained clothes of the many thousands of dead are piled on the pews, reminding us of people who will not worship God together again.
Outside lay a few mass graves, eternal homes to the bodies of some 45,000 Rwandans – those that died at the church, as well as bodies gathered from the surrounding areas. These graves were open for viewing, and as we descended into their cramped depths, we were again struck by the sheer numbers of the tragedy; hundreds of large wooden boxes lined the sides of the graves, and within each were the remains of ten Rwandans, our guide informed us. Sheets of white and purple covered these boxes, the color purple symbolizing mourning.
The mass graves outside the church at Nyamata contain the bones of 45,000 people.
We were able to walk down into these graves and were sobered by our descent.
We pray for the eternal peace of these souls.
Our next stop after the memorial was much more uplifting; we visited the soap projects of Nyamata. It is home to twenty or so ladies who make and sell soap, using the profits for the care of well over a hundred orphans. All are trained by REACH counselors, and many are wives or widows of survivors or perpetrators of the genocide. Theirs is an uplifting story, an ideal model of the forgiveness and reconciliation that REACH strives for.
The beautiful women of the Nyamata, whose work of reconciliation has come to include a soap-making collective that benefits them all socially and economically. They are a sign of hope in a broken world.
Two women, reconciled after the genocide, tell their story.
One is a widowed survivor; the other is the wife of the man who killed the survivor's husband.
The women of the Nyamata soap-making collective dance and sing to welcome us.
The Rev. Judith Stuart, our trip leader, speaks to the women, thanking them for their witness to us of the power of healing and reconciliation and of their deep faith in themselves and God.
Liz sings to introduce us to the women.
Her song is so beautiful, that all of us have tears in our eyes.
If we were at all excited to see them, they were more excited to see us. The ladies greeted us with a very energetic song and dance. Few of them spoke English, but they could not have communicated their joy and welcoming to us any clearer even if all were fluent. A few shared their testimonies with us – traumatic and inspiring at the same time – and a few of our group responded with some heartfelt reflection. They sang another song for us, persuading even the most reluctant of us to dance, and then we happily cleared out their soap stores in return for francs that would go to those who need it.
The women teach us to dance!
Spending time with these women, you can't help but smile and laugh.
We all get into the celebration!
Soap drying on the table.
The wonderful-smelling eucalyptus soaps produced by the women's collective.
The colorful wrapper on each handmade soap bar reads:
"TURIUMWE ~ 'We are One.' ~ Community Reconciliation through Socio-Economic Cooperation."
Just before leaving, we stop for a photograph with the women's collective.
We are so blessed to have met them.
It was midafternoon by the time we left, and the rumblings of our stomachs were rivaling that of the bus, so Father Philbert took us to La Palisse Hotel for a late lunch alongside the beautiful Lake Rumira. We then returned to CUP for some time to relax before dinner.
The lake where we ate lunch.
We kept one eye on the water at all times, as crocodiles are known to surface rapidly!
An after lunch photo shoot.
We can't believe it's our last full day in Rwanda! We are sad to leave.
That night, Father Philbert threw us a party to celebrate one last time before our departure back home. A group of traditional dancers put on a show for us, we all shared on-the-spot reflections, and Philbert and a few of his fellow priests even sang for us – he’d been holding out on us all trip long! It was a wonderful night to bring a close to our time in Rwanda.
A silly photo of The Rev. Philbert Kalisa of REACH Rwanda!
We are grateful to Fr. Philbert and his staff for their care of us during our visit.
We deeply admire the work they are doing with the poor toward healing and reconciliation in Rwanda.
The next day, as you all know, we returned to the States after a grueling near thirty hours of flying and stopovers. It’s good to be back, among our families and comfortable lives, but our trip is not over. To go back to work and school, indifferent and unchanged by what we have seen, is an affront to all that REACH and Rwanda itself have done and continue to do. It is the people of Rwanda who forgive each other and work to heal themselves and their country after the tragedy of genocide, but the message of reconciliation is universal.
Thank you all for following us on our journey, and God bless,
~ MacLean Cadman, Boston College senior
All photographs were taken by Annalise Nielson, Northeastern University undergraduate.
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