Irene Umutoni, age 6 & Uwamwezi, age 7
Relationship: Sisters
Favorite toy: A doll they shared
Favorite food: Fresh fruit
Behaviour: Daddy's girls
Cause of Death: A grenade thrown in their shower

This is the first thing I read upon entering the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda. It was quite a shock. I should have been prepared for it, knowing where I was, but I wasn't.

The memorial is really more of a museum in many ways. It is in a very modern, nice-looking, well maintained building surrounded by gardens. The displays are informative and well presented - there are even touch-screen videos to watch. It was horrific and shocking; in some ways more so than my visit to Dachau in Germany.

The displays began with the the history of Rwanda before the genocide, back to the days before colonization. As with Dachau, the history presented was accurate, but didn't quite present the whole picture. According to the displays Tutsi and Hutu were simply economic distinctions, people could transfer from one group to another, and they lived together peacefully -- until the Belgians arrived. This is not precisely true.

I don't know how things worked exactly, but from putting various sources together it was somewhat like this: The Tutsi had pretty much all the wealth and the Hutu lived somewhat similarly to serfs in a feudal system. It was possible for a few Hutu who were smart and who looked like Tutsi to move into the Tutsi class, but it was definitely not the norm.
When the Belgians colonized Rwanda, however, they gave all the important position to Tutsi, thus widening the gulf between the two groups. The Hutu, however, made up most of the army. After the colonizers left, the Hutu came to power. There were Tutsi rebels and Hutu rebels in the years leading up to the genocide -- no "innocent" group.

But lots of innocent victims when the President died (and his successor was assassinated) in 1994. It didn't have the same organization as the Holocaust or the same number of killings, but just by the ways people were killed in Rwanda it seems in some ways more horrific. The quote I opened this entry with is from the children's memorial. Of the 15 children included in the display seven were hacked to death with machetes, two were shot, two died by grenade, one was stabbed in the eyes and head, one was burnt alive, one was tortured to death. Of the last child all we know is that he was killed in a church. (Some priests acted in ways worthy of their title during the genocide. Others aided in the killings.) In some ways, more frightening than the way in which some children were killed, was the fact that some children, as young as 10, were among the killers.

But what really brought the horror home - more than anything else - was watching all the video displays of survivors. Most of them were about my age. It made the whole thing more real. Something that couldn't be dismissed as history or something of another time. People my age saying that their lives were ruined, but hopefully the children's or grandchildren's lives would have hope. Or saying that they understood why their parents were killed (!), but just couldn't understand why their younger siblings were killed. One young man recalled the last meal his mother ever gave.

And despite all this, the memorial stands apart from what is Rwanda. By and large, Rwanda is a beautiful mountainous country filled with friendly, helpful people. It is only at memorials and at the occasional mentions of war (just as likely to be refering to Congo as to Rwanda) that there is any sign of what happened here 11 years ago. Yes, there are disabled people in the streets and I sometimes wonder -- are their conditions due to the genocide? But I do not think there are any more disabled people or beggers here than in the rest of East Africa.

And so, in many ways I am not at all happy to have this be the first entry you read from Rwanda. There is so much more to Rwanda than the genocide and it is not, I would say what now defines the country. When I remember back to my time in Rwanda years from now I know that I will think more about the breathtaking mountains, vividly green terraced hills, and friendly welcoming people.