On a more serious note

Hi everyone! I hope that you've had a nice weekend so far!

Day Two was another good day of learning about Rwanda! However, my events from yesterday require a post with a bit of a serious note, yet one that's important to understanding Rwandan history and culture. I've had a lot of questions about what happened in 1994, so I'll try and answer them as best as possible in this post.

On Friday's, most offices in Kigali close at 1:00pm. I was told this is so that people can go home "for sport," or to exercise. We celebrated one of our co-worker's birthdays (they surprised him with cake, lots of singing and speeches), and then I joined in on the tradition and headed home. One of my co-worker's visiting friends from South Africa wanted to go see the Genocide Memorial, so I joined him. We both heard that, although this is an extremely painful thing to see, it's important to understanding Rwandan culture. We rode "motos" or mo-peds there; which is the best way to travel around Kigali. That also happened to be my first time ever on a motorcycle of any type. Don't worry Mom and Dad - they drove slowly and safely, and everyone is required to wear a helmet. :)

The Memorial takes about 2 - 4 hours to go through and its laid-out similar to holocaust museums. I was grateful that my new friend was there because he knew a lot more of the history than I did and could answer many of the questions that I had. I wasn't sure how much information to put into the description of the genocide memorial, because it truly is devastating, but since it was built in order to educate people towards hopefully not committing the same crimes again, I think it's necessary to give a brief overview of what happened.

I will do my best to describe this the way I've been told. When the Belgians colonized Rwanda, they divided the country racially into two primary groups, Huto - >80% of the population, and Tutsi - 15% of the population. Originally, one was declared a Tutsi if he owned more than 10 heads of cattle and a Hutu if less than 10. The Tutsi were thus the economically more advantaged group and the Belgians treated them as such, which not surprisingly led to resentment. After decades of political stand-offs, fighting and violence, the devastating government-sponsored genocide that we've all heard about occurred in 1994. For a period of three months, nearly 1 million Rwandan citizens carrying an ID card labeled "Tutsi" were systematically murdered. Thus, 10%-20% of the country's population was killed. One of the hardest parts for me is the fact that several of these massacres took place within churches and hospitals that were supposed to provide refuge. It's very sad, but one wondrous thing is that the people turned to faith and community in part to deal with some of its after-effects even despite some of the betrayal that occurred.

Alas, the current president of Rwanda was instrumental in stopping the genocide and has also helped to ease tensions and advance the country since then. No one talks of "Tutsi's" and "Hutu's" anymore - all are "Rwandans". In fact, no one speaks of the genocide. The international community in large part continues to apologize for not intervening. Bill Clinton, who was President of the U.S. at the time, was quoted saying "This didn't happen under my administration, it happened under me."

The events of 1994 are especially difficult to comprehend when I'm working with people who grew-up here. It's nearly impossible that those aged 20 and older were not impacted by the events of 1994. I've heard that it's not especially polite to ask too much about someone's family unless they offer the information because you never know where they were in 1994. Seeing the kindness and warmness with which I've been welcomed here, I cannot imagine that this happened 17 years ago.

It makes it all the more inspiring that Rwanda is now one of the safest countries in Africa. The country has advanced in so many ways and is on track to achieve great development milestones. They've reduced the prevalence of HIV to 7% from a high of 22% right after the 1994 events. This is less than half that of many other African countries and especially important since the HIV virus was spread wildly during the 1994 events. As another indicator, Rwanda's economic growth rate (GDP) has been consistently positive (i.e. continually growing), even through the latest recession. It's been an impressive turnaround to say the least.

A group of friends at Hotel des Milles Collines

So, after paying our respects at the mass graves, we headed back via moto to my co-worker and his wife's house to regroup. My friend said that the moto-driver was driving at "Mzungu speed" (i.e. slow for the foreigners - "Mzungu" is a Swahili word for foreigner that I can explain more later). Anyway, the rest of the night was a little lighter. We had drinks at the Hotel des Milles Collines, which literally means the hotel of a thousand hills. This is also the hotel where more than 1,000 people were saved during the genocide due in part to an extremely brave hotel manager as portrayed in the movie, Hotel Rwanda. The picture to the left is all of us at a poolside table there (I'm in the very back). We then met up with some of my co-worker's other visiting friends and went to a restaurant/bar called Executive Car Wash. This place is actually a car wash where you can go order food and drinks while you wait. I think that original intention has morphed a little because last night it looked more like a restaurant with a car wash than the inverse. Lip-syncing is popular here, and there were three people on stage dancing and lip-syncing to American pop songs. We ate masala fries (french fries with Indian spices on them) and more potatoes with mayo and piri piri (hot sauce).

Iris Restaurant - Next to where I'm staying

Tomorrow morning I leave to meet Melody in Tanzania. We're going to spend most of our time in Zanzibar, the island off the coast, with a couple days on the mainland to go on safari. We heard that its migration time, so we hope to see a lot of animals - Zebra, Buffalo, Elephants, etc. I will get a ton of pictures I'm sure.

So, tonight I spent packing with a quick break for dinner at the Iris restaurant, the restaurant attached to the guest house where I'm staying (pictured). Chantal is the hostess there and is very kind in helping me practice French. I was proud of myself for ordering goat brochettes (kebabs) and piri piri sauce :)

I will update from Tanzania shortly - have a wonderful weekend! (Or "weekenazizi" in Kinyarwanda - spelled phonetically because I can't find a source for how to spell things online). Love and miss you all!

Love,
Meredith