We made it here! Musanze, to be exact. Up in Volcans National Park, the northern most part of Rwanda. Our flight arrived yesterday at noon, and after 30 hours of travel we were whisked away by Kevin, our driver and guide for the week who, ironically, was Sandra's and Dorothee's driver when they visited Volcans two years ago. He was highly regarded so we were thrilled to get him. We were surprised when, within minutes of picking us up, he began to talk about the Genocide. It started with him describing the Kigali city development in terms of "pre-genocide" and "post" neighborhoods. But it opened up to much more detailed sharing after we stopped to visit the Genocide Museum. Despite fatigue and exhaustion from so much travel, we were told the museum would provide so much context for our understanding of their country, so, interested to learn more, we stopped there for an hour of sobering reality. The rift between the Hutu and Tutsi was a longstanding one, beginning in the 50s but not coming to a head until 1994 when 2million Tutsi were murdered in three months. Our exposure to the atrocities was only through watching Hotel Rwanda years past, so the museum was eye-opening to learn more of the history in detail. Having happened only 19 years prior to our visit means that almost everyone we came across had a personal account of it. Kevin, the most open account we were privileged to told us that he grew up in Kigali as one of eight children, four of whom were killed in the "Bad Times", his sister having been in bed with him when the Hutu raided their house. Kevin jumped out the window and fled to the corn field, where he hid for a week. His sister was beheaded. His other brother, the eldest, was shot trying to protect their house. The other siblings were living with their aunt so the details of their deaths are unknown. As an eleven year old, Kevin went to a refugee camp, where he lived in horrid conditions-- little food, tight quarters, and poor education-- for three years, all the while unaware as to the survival of his parents and other siblings. Were they later killed? Were they in a similar refugee camp?
At one point in our drive north Kevin received a phone call. After serval minutes of talking he got off and said the man who called was his best friend and his only family (since his biological family was not there) while he was at the camp. But one day this best friend disappeared. First he lost his real family, then his best friend. Poof. Gone. But here, 19 years later, this man is now in Kigali with his wife, visiting from the US and looked up Kevin! It's absolutely crazy! And it goes to show how recent all this is. They are still piecing together stories and locating loved ones. You might think that it would be hard to be reunited and have a reminder of that painful chapter in his life, but it might be shocking, as it was to us, to learn that Kevin has dinner regularly with the man who killed his siblings. This man was a neighbor of theirs and now, after ten years of prison, is out and back living in the same house as he used to live. So they are neighbors again. As I mentioned, this was a shock to learn, but Kevin was very even keeled and said, "He apologized and it wasn't him, it was our government and to move forward we have to look forward." This degree of forgiveness is one that I witnessed in Cambodia with the genocide of Pohl Pot in the 70s and we heard from our tour guide at Tuol Sleung that there were persecutors living among them who had yet to be tried for their crimes, but they have been, at this point, forgiven for the atrocities they committed. I cant imagine the degree of forgiveness for something as horrible as the slaughter of your family and I pray that I will never be tested on that.
Kevin's outlook on the future is so heartening. His siblings are both public singers on the radio and are competing in the Rwandan equivalent of "American idol", called "Turi Kumwe" meaning "all together" and their songs are about love, life, and healing. This Saturday is the finale of the show, where the top five contestants compete, two of whom are his family, so we are looking forward to watching the show with him! On our way up to Volcans, we blasted their music and watched the music videos, complete with several cameos of Kevin!
Not only are the people forward-thinking, but the country seems to be as well. The infrastructure is often very new and the roads are phenomenally unkept (better than in the States). And the streets and towns are incredibly clean. It is like the Switzerland of Africa! But to distinguish itself as "post-genocide", even the language has changed to be English and Kinyarwanda from French. I know Sandra and Dorothee said, coming from the chaos of Uganda, that they found the order to be eerily Stalinist. And in some ways they are right. You liter, you are fined $50. It is illegal to identify someone as Hutu or Tutsi now They are "all Rwandans" (though we learned that, like the Hazara in Afghanistan, the nose is usually the defining feature to determine heritage). One South African man was seen wearing a shirt that had the face and emblem of the former Hutu leader and mysteriously disappeared for a week. It reminds me of the confederate flags sometimes seen flying in the deep south still, endorsing a region and group of people who were more than just slave owners, but at times persecutors of their own perverse crimes and murders. But despite the irreverence and insensitivity those southerners have, they still have their freedom of expression. The Rwandans, in fear of a repetitive ethnic cleansing, skew the other way to control their words and even dress. Eerily Stalinist indeed... but yet it's lovely and we find it the "Africa lite" compared to other dirty, chaotic, depressed countries we've visited.