As i walked up to the church, there was a pungent smell, a dirty smell. Its hard to describe. Before i even got to the door, i thought "Je ne veut pas etre ici." and the feeling intensified as we toured the church.
Fifteen years ago, a genocide occurred in Rwanda. The events leading up to it are complicated and the history is long, but in April of 1994, neighbors started killing neighbors because of what tribe they belonged to. The killings lasted for 100 days, and the death toll was around one million people. Thousands of people came to this particular church for refuge. Roughly 4,500 people packed into the church thinking that they would be safe when the killing started.
Our guide, who was eleven years old when the genoicide hit, explained to us that the holes in the cement floor just under the door way were from the grenade that the attackers threw to blow open the door.
The piles of clothes everywhere were the clothes of the victims who weren't so lucky. The alter of the church was blood stained, and there were 'tools' of killing laying on it.
Once again it thought "je ne veut pas etre ici." We walked down into a little memorial. There were skulls laid out in rows, one even had the person's name written on it.
Behind the church, there was a crypt. A mass grave, if you will, of the 4,500 people who died in the there. There were a few steps to go down into it, and i could see caskets at the bottom of the stairs. My dad asked me if i wanted to go down there. I told him no, i didnt, and then went down the stairs.
There were metal shelves about 8 feet high. On the shelves were bones, piles of bones, and skulls. Or what was left of them. Some of the skulls were just fragments, i shudder to think how they got that way.
Just fifteen years ago, these were real people. Who laughed and sang and danced. I couldnt shake the feeling that there was evil in the crypt, these people died because of evil. As one Rwandan put it, during the genocide satan was loose in Rwanda.
The Rwandans have a proverb that says something to the effect that God goes all over the world during the day, but he sleeps in Rwanda. They also say that he slept somewhere else during the genocide.
After the genocide, Rwanda was reborn. In the wake of such terrible things, Rwanda has responded well. I was reminded of this, as i came out of the crypt, and i heard the sound of children's voices.
They had just gotten out of school for the day.
Genocide
This blog was written in October, shortly after i got home from Rwanda.
Emmanuel let out a sigh as we pulled up to the church. A rudely built, but beautiful old building, used for many years as a place of worship was now a memorial. Purple is the color of mourning in Rwanda and i saw purple everywhere, along with bullet holes.
He also told us that he survived by burying himself in the midst of dead bodies, blood and limbs and playing dead. He struggled to breathe because of other people's blood that pooled near his head and when, after two days he got up, he had to peel his face from the dried blood on the floor.
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