Commemoration

At the end of the term, I spent the last week of exams/grading at my In-Service Training (IST). For the first time since our site installation in the beginning of December, all of Ed. 7 was reunited in the same place. Super exciting, mildly nerve-wrecking as many of us have become hermits and rarely leave our sites, exhausting, but overall good. We had some useful sessions, some much needed reconnecting time with other volunteers, and a lot of coffee and snacks. If there is one thing Peace Corps Rwanda does well, it is caffeinating and feeding us at their trainings so we don’t go completely stir crazy. Our IST finished on my birthday, so I left with a nice card from everyone and lots of hugs. That morning, a small group of us left as a caravan for the bus station to head back to Kigali where we would split up to go to our respective destinations. 

Lisa, Katrina, Stephanie, and I began our journey to Gisenyi in the northwest corner of Rwanda on the Congolese border. After a long bus ride to Musanze, what seemed like an endless twege ride, and a brief moto, we made it to our hotel on the shores of Lake Kivu to enjoy some much needed time “not swimming” (PC says we can’t swim and we don’t want to be rule breakers) in the lake ;)

We spent our first evening at a restaurant called Thai Jazz, where we ate some much needed pizza and thai curry, and then watched a local dance group perform at a neighboring bar before calling it a night. The following morning, we relaxed and enjoyed our coffee (mainly Katrina and I because the morning can’t happen without several cups of coffee) before heading to the public beach across the street from our hostel. The first half of our day was spent “not swimming” and warding off creepy Rwandan men who were convinced they could say “I love you” and we would immediately want to marry them. Not really sure how this idea became a thing.. After some nice hot showers, we walked into town where we found food and ice cream for our last night in Gisenyi. Sitting on the balcony several levels above the street, you could see the mix of Congolese and Rwandan cultures. Everything was louder, people were more outgoing, and the general atmosphere felt somehow different than it is anywhere else I have visited in Rwanda.

After some much needed relaxation, I finally got home just in time for the torrential downpours to start. Fun fact, rainy season prompts subterranean termites to shed their wings. Funner fact, they are very attracted to light and can swarm your living room in less than two minutes… The end result involves hundreds of bug wings scattered through your house and you having so much anxiety that you don’t use lights at night for a week. I thought it was a nice welcome home present… I spent the next few days cleaning, visiting my neighbors who were convinced I had gone back to America, and preparing for my dog to arrive. Then it happened. Commemoration week. 

As I’m sure many of you are aware, Rwanda suffered a brutal civil war that culminated in a genocide which claimed the lives of over one million innocent people. The Genocide Against the Tutsi lasted approximately one hundred days before the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took hold of the country and ended the widespread killings. When discussed, people say it was a crime committed by Rwandans, against Rwandans, and ended by Rwandans. For this reason, the commemoration of this genocide is very important to help fight against genocide denial and genocidal ideology that, in some cases, stays latent among the people. Starting on April 7 and continuing through April 13, every person in Rwanda is requested to attend “commemoration discussions” at the umudugudu (village) level. These discussions last anywhere from 40 minutes to 3 hours, and are led by several respected members of each community. It is a time to discuss the history of Rwanda, the factors that led to the genocide, the consequences of the genocide, and for survivors and perpetrators to come together to seek reconciliation within their community. Some survivors speak about what happened, but many just ask the perpetrators to tell them where to find the bodies of their loved ones. Twenty-two years have passed, but every year new mass graves are found and the bodies of those killed are relocated to genocide memorials throughout the country. For instance, in my community, the bodies of people who had been killed were discovered and brought to the memorial. At our meetings, perpetrators were encouraged to come forward and help to identify the names of the individuals who had been found in order to provide closure for their families. For those few hours every day, the entire country shuts down. It is almost impossible to find any public transportation, all of the shops are closed, and anyone not attending the meeting stays inside their house. Commemoration is a solemn time in Rwanda, but it is amazing to see people come together to help the survivors in their communities to get through this period of mourning. Words cannot describe what happened here, and the pain that is still felt, but the collective, genuine dedication to rebuilding Rwandan society is phenomenal. No one will ever forget what happened in Rwanda, and no one should ever try to forget, but time is slowly healing the deep gashes that were left in the wake of 1994.