Sunday 20 April 2008

Gisozi Evening

This is an extract from my African travel blog, where you can read all of my adventures in Rwanda

One Million Dead
 
Friday night I spent at home, pretty tired after a long week. I had a wonderful chill-out, and was just about to turn in when D phoned to say that he was on his way home and to wait for him. I was dead tired by this point, and it was only about half-nine, so I was wondering 'why?' It soon became apparent. He brought me take-out lol Goat brochettes and ibirayi (like crispy baked potatoes). It made me so happy :op

I must have over-slept, about ten hours! Woke feeling a bit grotty. The cats have got the squits again. I think I've worked out it's the corned beef, or one of the preservatives in it. Not as bad as last time, thankfully.

On Saturday evening, D and I headed up to Gisozi Memorial Centre. Loona had e-mailed us about an event a few days before, and we decided to go along.

It was a really interesting night. It began with a survivor of the genocide telling his story. All the guys who work at the centre are survivors. This guy explained a bit about his life before the genocide. He was about six when he first started noticing things. In school the teacher would ask students to stand up by ethnicity, but he didn't really understand, so when his best friend, a Hutu, stood up, he stood up too. They were on the soccer team together, so he thought you could choose which team you wanted to be on. The teacher told him to sit down. Some years later, he was walking home with his dad from their shop when some young thugs started throwing rocks at his dad. His dad just ignored it, like it was expected. He couldn't work out why.

When the plane went down and the genocide started, they hid in their house with the lights off. Eventually, the militia broke in and found them. They made his mum and dad kneel and start praying whilst they loaded their guns. They said that if they paid enough money, they would come back in two days and not kill them now. This is what they did - they paid - and managed to flee to a neighbour’s house. They were found again and the men and women were forced to separate. The women were going to be killed later, once the men were dead. He managed to get some girl's cloths and disguised himself so that he could stay with his mother and sister.

They fled to a church. The priest was a member of the militia. He would let the Interahamwe in occasionally, to choose one or two people to kill outside the church, and to take girls to rape in public places.

Whilst there, he learned that his father and brother had been shot, but 'not in the right place'. They had survived for two days in the street before they finally died. He said that all of this time in the church, he was thinking that if they came to take his sister he would go up to the militia and ask them to kill him too. It was such unimaginable horror.

Eventually, they managed to escape and fled to the UN protectorate zone at the stadium near my house. As more refugees arrived, the Red Cross pulled out. He said that people were starving and dying of disease all the time. You got used to talking to someone, then, in the middle of a conversation, they'd literally fall over and die. He said they had fled from their homes originally because they wanted to die with other people, not alone.

One of the overriding memories he has is of a pregnant woman who had either been macheted or hit by shrapnel. She had been split open and you could see into her womb. She was covered in blood and screaming. After ten minutes she finally died.

Eventually, the RPF liberated Kigali. His mother and sister survived. His mother suffered mental trauma, but managed to get a job and pay his school fees. His sister is now married.

It was a very difficult story to listen to.

Then we watched the Panorama documentary by Fergal Keane: Into Darkness, documenting the genocide. I had already read his book Season of Blood and it was interesting to see pictures of the things I had read about, but harrowing.

After the lights came back on, and after a long pause, we had an open discussion about what we'd seen and people asked questions. It was a really good event. Apparently they run it every Saturday, but we only knew when Loona sent the e-mail. It was almost all VSO there.

Afterwards, D went to Gikondo to see some friends and I went to Stella for a drink with everyone. I had a wonderful evening with Mel and her partner, Dirk, at SoleLuna. It was really lovely. We drank a whole litre of wine! Dirk's treat.

Today, both D and I were nursing hangovers. We had a really lazy morning. I've been getting an edumercation in Reggae. I'll devote a post to it some time.

Busy week ahead. IT training starts tomorrow night :) I need to get a mushanana made for Léon's wedding. Capacity and Disability meetings on Friday, then getting ready for Kampala. Hope I can fit it all in!

Tuesday 8 April 2008

Memorial Day

This is an extract from my African travel blog, where you can read all of my adventures in Rwanda. 

Memorial Flame

Yesterday was national Genocide Memorial Day. Nothing in my life could have prepared me. It was intense.

Loona, Alicia and Morley (VSO vols) all work up at Gisozi Memorial Centre, the epicentre of national mourning. Loona said things would probably start about ten, so I took a moto and arrived about half-nine. The police had stopped people from going up to the gates on moto and everyone - hundreds of people - were walking the long winding road up the hill. It was baking hot already, but there was something spiritual about being amongst this procession.

Paula had arrived there before me. She texted to say that she was waiting at the gates but, as I got to them, they closed - too many people. I was wondering what to do next when Hattie, Loona's colleague, saw me in the crowd and came to rescue me. She took me round the side to the gift shop where Charlotte, one of the VSO Programme Managers, was helping out. Paula found me soon after, and we went into the Centre and up with Loona and Alicia onto a balcony overlooking the main entrance square.

Loona explained on the way up that earlier in the year Gacaca (community genocide courts) had extracted a confession from a convicted man about where they had buried the bodies. That morning they had re-interred a further 100 people from about ten or twelve families, so emotions were running high.

The courtyard was packed. Someone was talking in Kinya over the loud speakers. Then a choir started singing the most beautiful melodies. Alicia and I were just chatting away, mostly about our placements.

Then the screaming started.

I just remember sitting up and looking at Alicia, saying "What's that?"

"The grieving is starting," she said. "It has a domino effect."

She was right. Within minutes it had spread around the entire court - screams like you've never heard; wailing, crying. I thought it'd be like Diana's funeral - quiet mass sobbing. I had no idea. Nothing could have prepared me for this.

The Red Cross were there en masse and every so often they would wade into the crowds. Up to five men would bodily carry a man or a woman out, restraining their kicking legs and thrashing arms. They were shouting out in Kinya, often names. One man, I will always remember his voice, shouted out names and then gave this soul-deep gasp: 'Ooooh!' - reliving what he saw in front of him. It was the saddest thing I've ever heard.

Originally, there was a room set aside upstairs for people in trauma. We had a trauma specialist on hand. As the day wore on, more and more casualties came in and soon there were people lying in every room in the centre. I was drafted into the effort with boxes of water and piles of toilet roll to hand out. I stood in the lobby for a while with the tissue, but soon went out into the crowds just to be outside. The sounds were heartbreaking - just the screaming and the calling of names, people reliving what happened all over again. Morley spent two hours with one lady, who drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes she would suddenly sitting bolt-upright and reaching out, crying.

It was really, really hard.

I held together well, and was hugely grateful for the sanctuary of the balcony. There was a one minute silence. This huge sea of people walking down to the graves, just stopped. Like the world had stopped.

At the end, they lit a flame in the middle of the fountain. It burns for 100 days. 

This is when I lost it a little. I just stood, watching and crying. It was the image of the flame - the souls of all the people lying in those four metre deep pits. Not even whole people, but the bits recovered, and the little children. All those who have passed through that flame, as the living walked away. The crowds dispersing whilst the flame burned is this picture in my head that seemed so unutterably sad.

I'd never seen someone in real trauma before. Not like that. It was difficult, but I'm glad I went. It was an experience - a very human one - which is what I guess I went for in the first place. It was something very real, and something very surreal, all at the same time.

Soon after, Alicia and I escaped with another volunteer. We came back to Kisimenti. Kigali was a ghost town, not a shop or a bar open and no one on the streets. We walked for a while and eventually found one solitary bar willing to feed us. It was honestly the only one in the area.

We were all wearing purple ribbons and scraps of cloth - the colour of the memorial week. We sat and unwound with a beer and brochettes then went our separate ways. We needed that debrief.

I came home. D was here. I thought I was fine, but then I had a good cry and I was really fine. It had been a bit of a shock. I've never seen grief like that, not on that scale.

It's still really quiet outside, but there's a bit more traffic. Everyone's back to work today...