Grappling with the Reality of Genocide: Sleep My Child and Dream of Days to Come

Help us, we pray, in the midst of things we cannot understand, to believe and trust in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection to life everlasting. Amen.

~ Prayer from "Prayers and Meditation in Memory of Over Fifty Thousand People Who Died at Murambi Genocide Memorial in 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi," led by Fr. Philbert Kalisa

Children carrying items to market along the roadside between Kigali and Butare.

Muramuke!

That's "good night." By the end of the trip, you'll all be armed with a collection of various Kinyarwandan phrases. Expect a quiz when we return!

Our schedule today took us all the way out to the city of Butare, a few hours' drive from Kigali. We stopped midway to meet Father Philbert's good friend The Rt. Rev. Nathan Gasatura, the bishop of the Butare district.

Bishop Nathan Gasatura's (tall man in center of photo, in white shirt) 

warm welcome made us smile a lot.

We also had a great time teaching these children to use a digital camera 

during our meeting with Bishop Nathan.

Some of us enjoyed a spot of tea before getting back on the road.

Continuing on to the city of Butare itself, we passed a world of amazing sights: bustling and overcrowded urban streets, fields of eucalyptus trees, children playing by the side of the road (who were very eager to wave at us), the beautiful rolling hills of the Rwandan countryside, and more. We stopped for a buffet lunch in the city, then continued onto our destination: the Murambi Genocide Memorial.

Women carrying fruit to market along the busy streets.

A roadside fruit and vegetable stand. Friendly folks!

Women wearing colorful dresses make their way toward Butare.

Along with feet, bicycles, and busses, dirt bikes are common transportation in Rwanda.

Most of the ones we see are colorful, and they serve as taxis to ferry individuals around town.

Loggers balance precariously on the hillside, sawing tall trees with long, toothy saws.

Murambi is one of the country's most shocking monuments to the genocide. The museum was created out of the remains of a secondary school where local Rwandan authorities urged Tutsis to flock to in order to be protected. Once all the victims from the surrounding areas - around fifty thousand in all - had gathered within the school's fenced-in campus, they were slaughtered. There are few, if any, other single sites in the country that offer witness to such mass killing.

The entrance to Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre.

This is the building that houses the Murambi exhibition. 

Behind it are the school buildings where thousands of bodies lie.

The museum exhibits were similar to that of the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center, though no less unsettling. Outside was a mass grave that houses 28,000 Rwandans - it was impossible to comprehend the number of the dead that lay below the simple yet beautiful structure before our eyes.

The mass grave of 28,000 victims. 

As additional remains are uncovered around the countryside, they are prepared for burial and brought here for a formal funeral service and internment of the bones.

The school buildings, which were unfinished at the time of the genocide, remain unfinished.

Inside, they offer a record of the horrors that happened here in 1994.

We provide photographs of some of the memorial rooms at the bottom of this blog entry.

But it was what came next that was most difficult (to warn you, the following part is a little graphic - skip to the next paragraph if you like). As our guides led us behind the museum, we came into sight of about a dozen school buildings, each with several classrooms in them. In each room lay piles of decomposed corpses retrieved from the crude pits that the Hutu killers and French soldiers unceremoniously dumped them in. Testimonies, museum exhibits, and books can only hint at the sheer tragedy that was the Rwandan genocide, but standing before the actual bodies of its victims was something far more earth-shattering and threatening to the distance that usually shields us from the devastating inhumanity of such events. Bodies lay contorted in tortured positions, and the decayed remains of children lay atop their parents. There were hundreds, if not thousands, each a horrific reminder of a life that was cut short. I can say without a doubt that walking through those rooms was one of the most difficult experiences of my life, and the one that has most effectively and intrusively conveyed to me the true tragedy of genocide.

A bas relief artwork inside the Murambi Genocide Memorial.

From there, we continued onto the remains of a volleyball field that French soldiers hastily constructed over a mass grave in a despicable effort to hide the killing that took place at Murambi. Passing several more mass graves, we returned to the museum where Father Philbert led us in a prayer session to help us process the sights of the past few hours.

Help us, we pray, in the midst of things we cannot understand, to believe and trust in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection to life everlasting. Amen.

A view of the lush Rwandan terraced farmlands from the mass grave area 

where French soldiers set up a volleyball court after the Murambi massacre.

We then hopped back on the bus, and a few hours later returned to the Center for Unity and Peace for a late dinner. We're up early tomorrow to go meet with a Rwandan youth group, then continue on to Akagera National Park for two nights, including a New Year's Eve celebration!

Muramuke and amahoro - peace be with you all.
~ MacLean Cadman, Boston College senior


Photographs by Annalise Nielson, Northeastern University undergraduate student, and Brandy Purcell, Northeastern University staff member. Additional photographs below.

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Please note: The photographs below are very difficult to take in. After much conversation amongst our group about whether or not we should include them, we decided to do so because we believe they help us tell the story of the one million people who lost their lives in the 1994 genocide. As pilgrims visiting Rwanda, we deeply honor the memory of these men, women, and children who were viciously and systematically murdered and whom we will never have the chance to know, except through the witness of their bones.

These skulls and the other bones that follow are from a mass grave at Murambi.

It is difficult to imagine how 50,000 people could have been killed in the space of a few hours.

The mass grave from which these human leg bones were taken

remains a deep and painful gash in the red earth of the verdant Rwandan hillside.

We grieve with the families and friends of those who lost their lives in the genocide.

We offer this blog as our bouquet of flowers 

to the memory of those who died and with hope for those who remain.

Perhaps the hardest and most devastating loss of all is the loss of children.

So many innocent young people--babies, toddlers, school-aged children, adolescents, and young adults--lost their lives to a genocide perpetrated by adults 

who should have been teaching them how to live together in peace.

This poem sits on a table in the children's room at Murambi. The poem reads:

Sleep my child and dream of days to come when

Pain is conquered in love's sweet embrace.

Why do these lands cry out, stained with our blood and tears

All the hopeful years blossom into grief

Hurt more than words can say, dignity stripped away

Taking my everything, leaving me to mourn.

Someday I'll wake to see, change drifting over me

When truth has told her tale, and her voice is heard

These rains wash over me, scars though they still may be

Forgiveness takes a step leaving me with hope.

These children, who live next door to Murambi Genocide Memorial 

and who play in its backyard, are the hope for the future. 

These children are the dream of forgiveness.

Help us, we pray, in the midst of things we cannot understand, to believe and trust in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection to life everlasting. Amen.

Meeting REACH Rwanda, Learning About the Past

DioMass College Pilgrims, one and all! 

Following this morning's breakfast at the Center for Unity and Peace, Kigali.

Mwiriwe, family and friends!

Get out your notebooks: Mwiriwe is "good evening" in Kinyarwandan, one of the official languages of Rwanda. Though it's more night than evening by now, we're finishing up our first full day in the beautiful city of Kigali. We're still sluggish with jet lag but eager to take anything Father Philbert and his REACH Rwanda team can throw at us. And it is a pretty amazing organization - including the kitchen and service staff, who have been cheerfully teaching us various words of the local dialect while serving our meals and assisting in a multitude of ways. After we woke this morning, we were treated to a breakfast of African and chai tea, fresh fruit, rolls and a creamy-looking cheese that turned out to be butter masquerading as cheese, which we discovered in a startling and palate-befuddling manner.

This is where we are staying--The Center for Unity & Peace (CUP), Kigali.

Bishop Tom Shaw of the Diocese of Massachusetts 

with Fr. Philbert Kalisa of REACH Rwanda outside CUP.

Afterward, we meandered over to the Center for Unity and Peace's conference room, where three of the REACH Rwanda staff - Father Philbert, Fidele and Rob had prepared a presentation for us. Father Philbert gave us a brief personal history - how his parents fled with him to Burundi as the violence that began in the late '50s continued into the '60s; the murders of many of his relatives who stayed in Rwanda; his difficult childhood in a refugee camp; his education in England during the early '90's, including during the 1994 genocide; and his vocation to return to his homeland a year later to promote reconciliation between the survivors and offenders. He was rather modest, however, about the enormous efforts that he must have put in to transform a team of a few determined Christians into an internationally-recognized reconciliation program that is run by over 60 volunteers and has trained thousands of counselors to facilitate healing for the people of Rwanda.

The REACH Rwanda Team.

Fidele spoke of some of the difficulties the team dealt with in creating a viable program. A year after the horrific genocide, not many were interested in reconciliation; offenders were being imprisoned, while victims struggled with the trauma of the violence and the pain of losing their family and closest friends. With a fifth of the country's population dead and many more displaced, its economy was devastated and the future of a whole generation was in question. But as Father Philbert and his team have proven, reconciliation and forgiveness can exist even in the worst of circumstances. Finally, Rob, an Australian (complete with accent) who moved to Rwanda a few years ago, described his work to combat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with programs like Empower, which seeks to help traumatized people safely and healthily process their distressing memories.

DioMass College Pilgrims in dialogue with REACH Rwanda staff.

Come afternoon, we drove to the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, our driver skillfully navigating the streets clogged with dirt-bike taxis and pedestrians struggling with heavy bags, baskets, and boxes of all colorful sorts.

On the bus, riding through busy Kigali.

Military and police presence are heavy in the city, as are interesting advertisements.

Outside of the Kigali Genocide Memorial.

Our group waiting at the garden entrance to the genocide memorial.

The memorial is a beautiful and sobering place, contrasting the heartbreaking exhibits of its dim interior with the beautiful gardens and fountains outside. The tour provided a depth of understanding of the genocide and its aftermath that cannot be matched by any movie or textbook. For any who aren't familiar with the history (I'll admit I wasn't), here's a brief summary: The Belgian colonists, in the 1930s, began to establish a divide between the peaceful Hutu and Tutsi people, beginning by identifying Tutsis as those with ten cattle or more, and Hutus as those with less than ten cattle. The schism heightened when the colonists issued ID cards identifying their carriers as Tutsi or Hutu, and placed the minority Tutsi in power. They were soon overthrown by the Hutus in the late '50s, however, and sporadic violence against Tutsis began, only increasing when General Habyarimana seized control in the '70s. Habyarimana began preparing for the extermination of the Tutsi people, creating death lists and enlisting and training militia called "Interahamwe." When his plane was shot down in 1994 (by whom is still uncertain), the genocide began instantly: over the next three months, the Interahamwe and regular Hutu citizens, spurred by the urgings of radical Hutu leaders, murdered nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus who refused to participate in the violence. The genocide was largely ignored by the UN, despite the warnings of one of its generals in the country, and was only stopped when the Rwandan Patriotic Front - a force of previously exiled Tutsis - invaded and took control of the country, sending millions of Hutus fleeing to surrounding countries. But despite suffering one of the most horrific genocides of modern history, Rwanda has since become a model of recovery and reconciliation.

A mass grave. 

Under these concrete slabs lie the bones of thousands killed in the 1994 genocide.

Roses on a mass grave.

The rose garden with all sorts of roses planted to honor the many different victims of the genocide.

A view of Kigali from the genocide memorial. 

In this land of stunning beauty and warm people, it is hard to imagine such atrocities that took place. 

Our trip back to the CUP included a stop at the Hotel des Mille Collines, the basis of the film "Hotel Rwanda," where manager Paul Rusesabagina saved the lives of more than one thousand refugees by sheltering them in the building. It was a welcome relief, visiting the site that served as a beacon of inspiration, heroism and hope in such a dark time.

Hotel des Milles Collines, the site where over 1,200 Tutsis and Hutus survived the genocide.

We drove through the compound and may return to the hotel restaurant for dinner. 

The set of the film, Hotel Rwanda, was in South Africa, not Kigali.

We returned eagerly to a much-awaited dinner, which we enjoyed with the company of a similar team from Japan. Afterward, we gathered for prayer and reflection, the serious mood of the meeting bolstered by songs from our emphatic and very talented music team.

Our Pilgrims Choir--MacLean, Trotter, Sarah, and Liz.

They have the voices of angels!

Now, most of the team wanders off to bed as I write this, as we have an early morning with a long drive that will eventually take us to Akagera National Park. We'll check in again tomorrow night with stories of more exciting adventures. Thank you all for reading, and God bless!

Text by MacLean Cadman, Boston College senior
Photos by Annalise and Judith Stuart. 
Additional photographs below.

Lady in yellow along the road into Kigali.

Men working the rich fields of Rwanda.

Thinking and relaxing on the plaza at the genocide memorial.

It's not the yellow rose of Texas, but it's just as gorgeous.
What a beautiful world we live in!

We've Reached Rwanda! It's Time!

Some of our group, just arrived at Kigali International Airport!

Greetings Fellow Pilgrims!

After two plane rides (a long Boston to Amsterdam and a longer Amsterdam to Kigali) with a total travel time of almost 24 hours, we arrived in balmy Kigali this evening! We deboarded the plane around 7:30 p.m. Central African Time, which is 2 hours ahead (+2) of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC); in comparison, Boston is 5 hours behind UTC (-5). When we stepped onto the tarmac to cross into the Kigali International Airport, we were greeted warmly by The Rev. Philbert Kalisa and the REACH Rwanda staff. Walking to the bus, we saw palm trees and hibiscus bushes, and we smelled the fragrance of other flowering plants that we hope to identify tomorrow in the morning light. Kigali, a modern city of about 4 million, was hopping tonight as we rode our bus through the city past the soccer field where two national teams were playing to a packed crowd. Once we got to the Center for Unity and Peace, we found our rooms and were treated to a delightful and tasty dinner, courtesy of our hosts at REACH Rwanda.

We are very tired and stinky tonight after our travels, so we aren't writing much. We are, however, including photographs below for your enjoyment. They follow us across the world to here. Tomorrow, we'll be going to the Kigali Holocaust Museum, and we will surely have much to reflect upon after that.

Here are our photographs, courtesy of Kevin Johnson, Annalise Nielson, Brandy Purcell, and Liz Peter. I upload them for your viewing pleasure to the sounds of some of our group singing beautiful bedtime songs that echo through the hallway of the guesthouse where we are staying. It is so lovely against the quiet of the Kigali night.

Peace be with you all,
Shan Overton, Boston College graduate student

On layover in Amsterdam's airport. Still smiling!

Duty free excitement.

The Alps from our flight from Amsterdam to Kigali.

A busy night outside Kigali International Airport.

What we saw from the bus--Kigali's lights...

Bedtime with mosquito net.

Delicious Rwandan repast, night one: fried bananas, chicken, saffron rice, beans, and potatoes.

Blurry post-dinner photo. Celebrating our safe arrival!

Good night, one and all. We will be back with you tomorrow.

Journey to Rwanda: Listening for the Creative Psalm of Sister & Brotherhood in Plain Words

 

Rwanda, the land of a thousand hills

I will listen to what you are saying,
for you are speaking peace to your faithful people
and to those who turn their hearts to you.
~ Psalm 85:1

Our blog has been silent for many months, but now it's time to get it talking again because we are preparing to leave for Rwanda in late December. This time last year, we--a group of Episcopal clergy and lay people, including college students and religious educators from the Diocese of Massachusetts--were getting ready to depart for Israel/Palestine to learn from people of different faiths and cultures who are committed to the peace process in that torn land. Now, we are preparing to leave for East Africa in a week's time. We have gotten ourselves ready through prayer, readings and film watching, group meetings, theological reflection, and a visit from The Rev. Philbert Kalisa of REACH Rwanda. We have had our immunizations, including the yellow fever inoculations required for entry into the country, where yellow fever and malaria are borne by mosquitoes that buzz around at night. We have shared our expectations and worries with each other and our friends, families, and church communities. Now, it is almost time to depart for this beautiful country with a deep and richly textured history and culture. There, we will learn about the horrific events of the 1994 genocide--and we will also learn about the ways in which Rwandans have lived not only through that dark time, but beyond it with hope and a vision for a peaceful future in which the beloved community of God is experienced as a reality.

The Rev. Philbert Kalisa of REACH Rwanda with Boston College student pilgrims.

Photo courtesy of Meredith Koch.

A small nation with a land mass the size of Maryland and a population of just over 11 million, Rwanda is tucked into East Africa between the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi. Geologically, Rwanda is situated in the Great Rift Valley, and its rivers are part of a system that is the origin of the Nile, which eventually runs northward into Egypt. Due to the mountains and lush landscapes of its central and western regions, the country is known as "the land of a thousand hills," which in French is "Pays des Mille Collines." In these green hills live the mountain gorillas made famous by Dian Fossey, whose experience in Rwanda is recounted in the film about her life, Gorillas in the Mist (1988).  In the east toward the border with Tanzania, Rwanda features a stunning African savannah of grassland and acacia woodlands where elephants, hippos, buffalo, giraffes, leopards, and other large animals live. All of us look forward to seeing the amazing landscapes, the animals and plant life and geographical features that make Rwanda an enchanting land not only for its visitors, but also for the people who have lived there for thousands of years.

 

Mille Collines, the thousand hills, is also the name of the four-star hotel in Kigali where Paul Rusesabagina welcomed and protected over 1,000 refugees during the genocide, when between 500,000 and 1 million Tutsi and Hutu people were killed by Hutu militias in just 100 days. Rusesabagina's story of the creative power of love for humanity against the human tendency to destroy others and the world is narrated in the film, Hotel Rwanda (2004), which we watched in preparation for our journey. After the film was made, Rusesabagina told his own story in An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography (2006), where he claims that he did nothing extraordinary in his efforts to keep people alive. He writes:

I am not a politician or a poet. I built my career on words that are plain and ordinary and concerned with everyday details. I am nothing more or less than a hotel manager, trained to negotiate contracts and charged to give shelter to those who need it. My job did not change in the genocide, even though I was thrust into a sea of fire. I only spoke the words that seemed normal and sane to me. I did what I believed to be the ordinary things that an ordinary man would do. I said no to outrageous actions the way I thought that anybody would, and it still mystifies me that so many others could say yes. 

Paul Rusesabagina

Although many have characterized the genocide in Rwanda as an experience with a pure and unearthly evil, Rusesabagina and others show us how ordinary people organize themselves in murderous and destructive ways. Evil, which seems at times to be out-of-this-world, can also be understood to be part of ordinary existence, something enacted by people gone awry in their daily lives. At the same time that we see through the genocide the presence of something so dark and ominous in human nature, we also see in Rusesabagina's life and in so many Rwandans' efforts to effect healing that it is possible to live with a love for humanity and a dedication to common decency, no matter what the circumstances of our lives. Groups like Philbert Kalisa's REACH Rwanda, our hosts for the duration of our pilgrimage, live with this kind of love, working for peace by sharing their message and considering the importance of the means by which they share it. REACH Rwanda gathers people together to tell the truth about what happened in their land and to dream of reconciliation in their communities, their nation, and the world. They strive for a world that becomes the beloved community of God, a world where, as Martin Luther King, Jr., put it in his Nobel Prize Award Acceptance Speech in 1964, we can "transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood." 

Mercy and truth have met together;

righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

~ Psalm 85:10 

Those of us embarking on this journey to Rwanda, the land of a thousand gorgeous hills and of a great human devastation, will be listening for the sound of this creative psalm as we make our way across the wide earth this winter. We invite you to join our pilgrimage through this blog, which we will update each day, from our departure from the U.S. on December 27 through our return on January 7.  We ask for your prayers and good thoughts, too, as we meet the people of Rwanda and listen to their stories of fear and hope and a world in which the beloved community of M.L.King can become a reality.

Elephants enjoying a meal on the African savannah.

~ Post by Shan Overton, Rwanda pilgrimage participant and PhD Student at Boston College

To learn more about REACH Rwanda, who will be hosting our visit, see their website at

http://www.reach-rwanda.org/index.html

The psalm selections are taken from The Saint Helena Psalter (2004), a translation published by the sisters of the Order of St. Helena, who were attentive to using inclusive language in their prayerful work.