Kigali

Well we stayed in the St Famille hostel as recommended by Mr. Bertin. It was very basic, owned by the nuns and well felt like a convent to be honest but there was hot water so we decided to stay... To be fare it was also in a great location and it was really cheap.

Rwanda is the land of a thousand hills... It is green and hilly and gorgeous but it has a harsh history...

The centre of Kigalii is very Western, 24 hour shopping markets, cafes with Wi-Fi
modern conveniences, to be honest it didn’t even feel much like Africa but a 30 min walk down the hill and the contrast was stark. The poverty was apparent and it was really the first place where I was always conscious of where I had my bag/ valuables...

As we arrived on the Thursday of Easter weekend everything was closed from Friday to Sunday so we spent quite a bit of time just arsing around. There was a lot of time spent in Bourbon coffee eating, drinking and surfing the web. On Sunday we went to Mass in St Famille church just beside the hostel, it’s a Catholic church filled to the rafters for 3 services in a row each no less than 2 hours long. It was an interesting experience, with some familiarity and some aspects a little alien like the language, the mass baptism in the middle of mass, more singing and clapping than we would be used to but altogether quite enjoyable, or at least it didn’t feel like 2 hours 15mins...

On Monday Bertin picked us up and brought us to the main genocide museum and then a church which was the sight of a mass murder and had since been made into a memorial site. The museum was very well set up with a really informative insight into the history of the genocide: when and how it started and the true atrocities that were carried out during that time. The reality of the horror was palpable in the museum especially as a group of Rwandans’ from outside of Kigali passed through while we were there and a number of the women were visible and audible very upset by the very vivid illustrations of what they and they families had experienced during the genocide.

Some of the most horrifying facts I learned about the genocide were;
People seeking refuge in their churchs were welcomed into the church but then the church leaders invited the perpetrators of the genocide to come and find their victims. In many cases the clergy were witnessed to aid the perpetrators in beating, killing and raping those who had sought refuge.

Another form of torture was where men known to be HIV positive were specifically chosen to rape women and this is one way in which people are continuing to suffer today.

In many cases were told how the victims would be attacked and have a limb chopped off and then they would be left to suffer and then their torturer would return a few hours later and cut off another limb – this slow agonizing approach to torturing their victims was stomach turning. In fact some victims paid their killers to use a bullet, effectively paying to be killed in a more humane manner and still it was not guaranteed.

Those who refused to take part in the bloodshed were made victims and so the blood shed continued.
1million men, women and children were killed in 100 days while the rest of the world did nothing.
There were some brave souls who hide people in their houses but they were few and far between and when caught they suffered the same faiths as those they were trying to protect.

The most impressive part of my visit was to learn that there is no residual hatred between the people of Rwanda - everyone is Rwandan and that is how they are rebuilding their country. But the bloodshed has left a lot of orphans 6 of whom Bertin is supporting through school, along with his own 4 children and 1 grand child.