The flight was fine, it stopped in Bujumbura (Burundi). Kenya airways was super nice, we got a hot towel as soon as we boarded, the plane was empty, food was good, and they had diet coke as well.
Got to Kigali, got my bag, some money at an ATM, and took a cab to my hostel. It is called the discover Rwanda youth hostel, and is pretty much the only hostel in Kigali. I got directions to get out and see the city a bit. I took a boda to the UTC (union trade center) which is like a brand new mall in Kigali with a nakumatt (like an east Africa Walmart), they also have them in Nairobi. I camped out at a juice bar with good Internet and worked on my premed committee app for a bit. I then checked out the craft market located right behind the juice place. I wandered around the city center for a bit, and just checked it out. Then I went to another craft market, Capulaki, which is a really nice one with lots of little stalls and tons of people calling out, "sister! Come look here sister!" I didn't even buy anything.
I'm super impressed with Kigali/Rwanda. Everything is super clean and organized, particularly compared with Uganda or Nairobi. I actually saw trash cans on the street, which was definitely a first over here. The boda drivers all wear helmets and the passengers have to wear a helmet, too. The boda drivers have a helmet for you when you get on, and all the drivers wear a vest so you can identify them. The taxi drivers at the airport also had a uniform, they were all wearing suits with ties! It was very legit, and nice to know you could take a cab without worrying about anything, which you just wouldn't do in Nairobi. The city itself is beautiful. Once you're here it makes send why Rwanda is "the land of 1000 hills". The whole city of Kigali is built on several hills, so most of the buildings are on top of hills and on the hillsides, and the low parts are all green and natural. So the landscape changes a lot as you drive thru the city.
Last night I went out to dinner with 7 other people from my hostel. We just went to a little local place down the road from the hostel. I had goat on a stick and banana chips. Most of us got the goat, which was quite good. I also got to try the Rwandan local beers, Mutzig and Primus. Both just regular lagers, like the rest of the beers in east Africa. Dinner was fun, the people at the hostel are all really nice. We had a beer when we got back to the hostel, and just kind of talked about where people had been and where they're going. It's a lot of solo people, which was nice, since I'm solo here too until Sam arrives.
This morning I had breakfast with Neil, who was leaving today, Catherine (who is here from the UK doing research for her PhD), and Christina (from Germany and volunteering in Zambia). I made my plans to go to the two churches that are genocide sites to the south of Kigali, Ntarama and Nyamata. Catherine and Paul, another guy staying here, ended up going with me, so it was nice to have company. We took a boda to the Nyabugogo taxi park, where we bought tickets for the matatus. So different than in Uganda, where you just get on! the matatu took us to Ntarama, and we had to take a boda about 2k to get to the actual site.
The church there is covered by a metal roof, like a carpark sort of structure to protect the original roof and structure of the building. Inside the church are floor to ceiling shelves with skulls and other bones on them from people who died there. The windows are all broken, from grenades being thrown through to hit people inside. Tutsis had taken refuge there before in 1992 and been saved, so they thought they could just go there again, but this time they were not saved. Hanging from the rafters and other shelves along the sides of the church are all the clothes of the people. They are all stained with blood and dirt and simply the sheer number of clothes can give an idea of how MANY people were crammed into this tiny church. Just being there felt very unreal, and very emotional. It's just hard to imagine all of these horrible things happening to people. Seeing the clothes and the bones is a more realistic reminder, but it's still hard to actually visualize...
This is the first church we went to (Ntarama).
After Ntarama, we took bodas down to the main road and about 5k until we got to Nyamata. The church there is a lot bigger. Our guide said about 10,000 people died there, and that again, people had sought refuge there in 1992 and thought they'd be saved again, but they weren't. The attackers used bombs to blow holes in the metal bars of the doors. You can see the holes in the ceiling above and shrapnel still stuck there from the bombs. The walls on the outside of the church are all covered in blood stains - they have varnished over the stains to preserve them. Inside the church, all of the benches are covered in the clothes of the people. Clothes are piled over a foot high on all the benches and other surfaces in the church - basically there were enough people in there to be many, many times over the typical capacity. They've built a sort of crypt down below the church where some skulls are displayed and where there is a casket of a woman who was raped by at least twenty men and brutally killed (the attackers shopped a sharp spear up her vagina, all the way up through to to herald, and she died like that. At the other site, they also described killings like that, so it sounds like a pretty common method - just horrible). The guide said the raping was pretty standard, but that they wanted to put this woman in the casket because hers was particularly awful and to honor other women who were killed the same way.
Inside the church, everything is draped in purple and white satin ribbons. The guide said the white means hope and the purple means sadness - so hope after sadness is what they mean together.
Again, illegal photo from inside the church. The white tiled part is the crypt is described that they put in after the genocide. Out back behind the church, they have built crypts that house the skulls and bones. The skulls are on shelves:
4 shelves from floor to ceiling. This is less than a quarter of the space in the crypts, and they are all filled. There are also caskets, each of which houses the bones of about 20 people. Just the sheer number of people, clothes, skulls, bones is staggering. It's just hard to wrap your head around that this actually happened. Here where I am standing. The guides are very matter of fact and clearly saddened, but they also show a lot of hope. It is clear that in 18 years, Rwanda has come a long way. I asked the guide at Ntarama if people still considered themselves Hutus or Tutsis and she said "we are all Rwandans now".
After Nyamata, we got lunch in the little town there and took a matatu back to Kigali, while it started pouring rain. Catherine went to go to the Kigali genocide museum (that I'll go to tomorrow with Sam) and Paul and I went off in search of sneakers for him, which we didn't find at an appropriate price. Then took bodas back to the hostel, where I have now written this and am about to leave to meet Sam at the airport. The next post will have pictures of GORILLAS (and likely be a bit cheerier than me talking about genocide the whole entry - but it was a valuable, good experience to go and see these things).
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