Later that same day (Thursday) we went to two other memorial sites. The first was at a place called Nyamata.
In previous massacres of the Tutsis by the Hutus, in 1959 and 1963, Tutsis would run to the churches and they always managed to find sanctuary. This time around, the churches were not places of sanctuary. The Catholic church did not prevent the Hutu from entering the churches, and in some instances, even turned over the Tutsis to the Hutu. The priests were no help and many of them were genocidaires, either participating in the killings or holding their congregations until the killers could arrive and massacre them. Some priests did not actively participate, but looked the other way when the killers came. I must add that Anglican and Protestant church leaders were no better. Due to quotas on how many could be Tutsi, most clergy of all churches were Hutu, and most participated in the genocide either actively or passively. This includes nuns.
The massacre at Nyamata happened on April 14, a week after the genocide began. At Nyamata there were about 10,000 Tutsis seeking refuge in the church and church grounds. There were about 2,500 people, mostly women and children in the church sanctuary, which was not a huge church by any standards, certainly not the size of St. James in Toronto which could easily hold that many people. I would say that it was only double or two and half times the size of my church, which is just a normal-sized suburban church. People were jammed in there like sardines. They crowded in and then locked the steel gates to the building, hoping that would stop the killers. A few grenades thrown at the church made short work of the door and then more grenades were thrown into the crowded church. It seems impossible to imagine but there are bullet holes and grenade holes in the metal roof of the church, the statue of Our Lady was damaged and bloodied by the injuries of the victims, and the fair linen on the altar, which has remained there all these years, is blood-stained. The tabernacle is also badly damaged. But that damage was insignificant compared to what happened to the people: they were all killed. Some were killed by grenades and bullets, and some by machetes. Two thousand five hundred people were killed in the actual church building and a further seven thousand five hundred were killed in the compound around the church building. Down in the crypt of the church, in a display case were several hundred skulls and countless leg bones. The rest of the people who perished are buried in mass memorial graves behind the church.
On the pews of the church were piled the belongings of all of the victims - all of the shoes and clothes and school books and rosaries and everything that they carried with them when they looked for sanctuary.
The skeletal remains of these victims were placed in an underground crypt behind the church. Also in that same crypt are the remains of people who were killed in the surrounding area, for a total of 50,000 people in the crypt.
At the back of the church we noticed several very large opaque plastic bags. One member of our group asked the memorial site guide if there were more belongings in the bags. There were all sorts of clothes piled on the floor around the bags. The man said that the bags contained the remains of people: skulls and bones. He said they ran out of room in the mass memorial grave outside, that they had under-estimated how much space would be needed for all the dead people. They were keeping the bones in the church because they had to be treated with respect, but because there was no place to properly display them or lay them to rest, they were in bags. That was an eye-opener.
Our next stop was at Ntarama. The story at this church is similar to the previous one, although there were about five thousand people killed here. Behind the church, in a series of huge underground mass tombs, are the remains of these individuals. Visitors can go into theses crypts where the skulls are arranged on shelves, as are the other bones of the victims. The stairs were very steep leading down into the crypt, but Linda and I went down. It really was quite overwhelming, seeing all the skulls and bones of the victims. Linda took many photos.
There was a small room at this church that had been where the Sunday School classes were held, and this is where the children were taken to be killed. There is a dark stain on the wall at one end of the building. This is where children had their heads smashed against the wall to kill them. The blood stain remains.
An interesting twist to the genocide at this church was that there were also nuns at this location. Our guide told us that the Hutu nuns gave over their Tutsi sister nuns to the killers.
As we were getting ready to leave, a woman came up to me and said, "Toute ma famille est ici. Il est fini pour moi." (All my family is here. It is over for me.) I asked what she meant and she said she lost every one - her parents, her husband, her children and her siblings, and she repeated that it was over for her. I asked her how she could carry on her life, under the circumstances. She shrugged and lifter her hands, palms up in a gesture of futility and said, "This is Rwanda." Her words and gestures left me feeling utterly bereft. My sadness was, I suppose, the culmination of three days of viewing the remains of horror: the Belgian soldiers memorial, the Kigali Genocide Museum, the Ecole Polytechnique, the church at Nyamata and then Ntarama, not to mention the material poverty of the Village of Hope. I looked around me at the once-beautiful church, this serene, if sad, woman, the gorgeous landscape, little kids looking through the fence at us, and felt the tears welling up. The woman hugged me to comfort me. But I could leave this place and she could not. She hugged Linda, too. We didn't know it but we would find out, as we went from memorial to memorial, that the survivors would come to comfort the visitors. That is the kind of place Rwanda is, and the kind of people that the survivors are.
Between our visits to Nyamata and Ntarama, went to a small village called the Nelson Mandella Village of Hope. This was a village that had genocide widows as its matriarchs. We met at the village school and they filed in to meet us. Wearing beautiful African print skirts and headwraps, they were very dignified and thanked us (through an interpreter, the mayor) for coming. We brought school supplies and soccer balls, although these were not the supplies that I had brought. We will be giving our things away later in the trip.
The school was fairly large, about the size of about two or three regular-sized Ontario classrooms put together, but only had one room. The desks were crudely made of 1 x 6 inch planks. The room had a good roof, but walls on three sides only. The fourth wall was made of bamboo matting and steel bars (I have to say that for a place with not much crime, the windows and doors everywhere are barred, like in a jail). Linda took a wonderful picture of one of the local lads looking through the matting at us. His smile is delightful and I have included his picture here. I am also including a picture of another little boy at the village. He is holding a balloon that our group gave him, and some school supplies.
At the back of the church we noticed several very large opaque plastic bags. One member of our group asked the memorial site guide if there were more belongings in the bags. There were all sorts of clothes piled on the floor around the bags. The man said that the bags contained the remains of people: skulls and bones. He said they ran out of room in the mass memorial grave outside, that they had under-estimated how much space would be needed for all the dead people. They were keeping the bones in the church because they had to be treated with respect, but because there was no place to properly display them or lay them to rest, they were in bags. That was an eye-opener.
Our next stop was at Ntarama. The story at this church is similar to the previous one, although there were about five thousand people killed here. Behind the church, in a series of huge underground mass tombs, are the remains of these individuals. Visitors can go into theses crypts where the skulls are arranged on shelves, as are the other bones of the victims. The stairs were very steep leading down into the crypt, but Linda and I went down. It really was quite overwhelming, seeing all the skulls and bones of the victims. Linda took many photos.There was a small room at this church that had been where the Sunday School classes were held, and this is where the children were taken to be killed. There is a dark stain on the wall at one end of the building. This is where children had their heads smashed against the wall to kill them. The blood stain remains.
An interesting twist to the genocide at this church was that there were also nuns at this location. Our guide told us that the Hutu nuns gave over their Tutsi sister nuns to the killers.
As we were getting ready to leave, a woman came up to me and said, "Toute ma famille est ici. Il est fini pour moi." (All my family is here. It is over for me.) I asked what she meant and she said she lost every one - her parents, her husband, her children and her siblings, and she repeated that it was over for her. I asked her how she could carry on her life, under the circumstances. She shrugged and lifter her hands, palms up in a gesture of futility and said, "This is Rwanda." Her words and gestures left me feeling utterly bereft. My sadness was, I suppose, the culmination of three days of viewing the remains of horror: the Belgian soldiers memorial, the Kigali Genocide Museum, the Ecole Polytechnique, the church at Nyamata and then Ntarama, not to mention the material poverty of the Village of Hope. I looked around me at the once-beautiful church, this serene, if sad, woman, the gorgeous landscape, little kids looking through the fence at us, and felt the tears welling up. The woman hugged me to comfort me. But I could leave this place and she could not. She hugged Linda, too. We didn't know it but we would find out, as we went from memorial to memorial, that the survivors would come to comfort the visitors. That is the kind of place Rwanda is, and the kind of people that the survivors are.
Between our visits to Nyamata and Ntarama, went to a small village called the Nelson Mandella Village of Hope. This was a village that had genocide widows as its matriarchs. We met at the village school and they filed in to meet us. Wearing beautiful African print skirts and headwraps, they were very dignified and thanked us (through an interpreter, the mayor) for coming. We brought school supplies and soccer balls, although these were not the supplies that I had brought. We will be giving our things away later in the trip.
The school was fairly large, about the size of about two or three regular-sized Ontario classrooms put together, but only had one room. The desks were crudely made of 1 x 6 inch planks. The room had a good roof, but walls on three sides only. The fourth wall was made of bamboo matting and steel bars (I have to say that for a place with not much crime, the windows and doors everywhere are barred, like in a jail). Linda took a wonderful picture of one of the local lads looking through the matting at us. His smile is delightful and I have included his picture here. I am also including a picture of another little boy at the village. He is holding a balloon that our group gave him, and some school supplies.
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