Today Got to Me

Continued to work on the PIQ and talked to both interviewers [Emmanuel (in the middle), and Patrick to the left of Emmanuel] for about 3 hrs about the interviews on Monday; made some progress with PIQ but needs a lot more work.



After lunch and a thunderstorm, we drove to the Bugesera region which is south of Kigali City and before 1994, an area where mainly Tutsis lived. We drove by the building GTR Ibuka/Nyanza again and the area is referred to as Nyanza-Kicukuro as to not confuse it with the district south of Kigali. We passed the town Gahanga and then the bridge from which many bodies were thrown in the river Nyabarongo.




Thru Nanzenze and Kura Arete and the first church visited was Ntarama. April 7th 1994 Tutsis, mostly women and children, fled from their houses into the countryside. After a while they left the forest and sought refuge in the church, thinking it would protect them. It did not. Holes were bombed into the church and the interahamwe killed thousands with machetes and/or burned them alive in a building off to the side. Now a memorial, the inside of the church included the following: at the side of the altar, remnants of household items the women brought for cooking were stacked up; skulls - all sizes from adult to children and babies - were laid out on a shelve; other skeletal remains below the skulls. The clothing of those killed hung over every free space available. The guide asked me not to shoot an inside photo. I was told that RPF soldiers were the first ones to come across this site after the massacre.



The next church was Nyamata, bigger which meant it could hold more people, and ultimately same story as Ntarama. People fled there for protection and thought the killers would not enter a church as they did not do when similar events happened in 1959 - but in 1994 things changed. Thousands bludgeoned to death and the church is now full of the clothing of those murdered there and skulls and bones are viewable and/or many buried in coffins. While we were there a relative of Theodore was buried - he was there too - the relative's body was found recently. It was discovered because of road building in the area. While we were walking around in the church, you could hear the burial ceremony, in particular the singing. I could not stick around much longer. I think the burial ceremony and mourners did me in, it was very hard to keep it together.




On the way back to Kigali, a security/military check at the bridge. The minibus before us got pulled over, we were waved through and arrived safely back at the hotel. Eve was spent in a park nearby where Eric Kabera's Pangea Day event took place. Very interesting, sat in the first row and watched a number of really good short films. Forgot to use mosquito spray but did not see any mosquitos.