Reporter Kitty Felde just returned from
Rwanda, where she was reporting on the work of the international
criminal tribunal. It was five years ago this month that Rwanda
collapsed into a genocidal frenzy. Today, there are weekly flights
from Europe and a full house at the legendary Hôtel Milles Collines,
though the number of actual tourists traveling there are few. Kitty
sent us a postcard of her recent visit.
Rwanda Revisited
by Kitty
Felde
Dear Rudy,
Rwanda was not at all what I expected. It looked familiar, somehow, like
the foothills of San Diego County. Even the trees were the same:
jacaranda, eucalyptus, avocado, even pine trees. There's even smog in
the capital city of Kigali that shrouds the views of the famous Thousand
Hills. The haze comes from smoky kilns that bake the mountains of
handmade clay bricks that line nearly every road.
For Kigali is in the midst of a building boom. Eucalyptus branches
have been stripped of leaves and are used as two-by-fours to form the
framework of new homes and office buildings. Humanitarian aid
organizations are building too: small villages of mud huts with either
tile or tin roofs to house the thousands of returning refugees who fled
to neighboring countries to escape the violence.
It's hard to believe that five years ago, neighbor turned against
neighbor in a bloodbath that left an estimated 800,000 people dead.
About 40 minutes outside of Kigali is the Ntrama Church, one of the
many genocide memorials in Rwanda. It was here that thousands sought
sanctuary after they heard the news on the radio that the plane carrying
their president and the president of Burundi had been shot down. No one
knew who had done it, no one knew which side would take advantage of the
chaos. So Tutsi and Hutu and Twa sought refuge together inside the
church.
Eventually the Hutu militia showed up and demanded everyone show
their identity cards. Hutus were allowed to leave. Everyone else was
killed when grenades were lobbed inside.
Today there are fragments of the simple stained glass window left. But
when I stuck my head through the holes in the walls, I noticed piles of
rags among the wooden benches. And then I noticed a red plastic bowl, a
child's orange sneakers, and a femur bone. Next door to the church,
there's a small shack where a table has been neatly stacked with row
upon row of skulls. The government has preserved this site and others
around the country so that future generations can never forget.
But right across the road from the church, there was a group of
children. I spoke no Kenya-Rwandan. They spoke no English. But we
managed to communicate well enough to play the monster game where we
take turns crossing our eyes and stretching out our arms Frankenstein
style and chasing each other around the trees. They were shy about my
microphone.
And so was the pack of Boy Scouts I saw marching down the streets of
Butare, a town in the south of the country. But no one, absolutely no
one in Rwanda, wanted their picture taken. "Why? What will you do
with it?" seemed to be the underlying question.
Rudy, I think there are two sorts of Rwandans living in the country
today: those who survived the genocide and expatriates who'd lived and
studied abroad for many years in places like Kenya or Canada. The former
are those like the man I met in the flower shop who has no foot, or the
women walking along the road who stare at you with haunted eyes, as if
to say, "Where were you five years ago? Why didn't you stop the
killing?"
But the latter are brimming with optimism and energy, coming home to
Rwanda with a good education and a little bit of capital and grand
schemes of starting a business whether it's exporting long stemmed roses
or starting a little fish farm.
Rudy, I'm still dreaming about Rwanda, about the red dust and the
banana trees and the children playing monster games. I think especially
about the youngest ones, kids who weren't even alive when the rivers
were clogged with corpses. I hope and pray that this silly cross-eyed
American is the scariest demon they'll ever have to face.
Best,
Kitty
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