Distance...

Today started out in a bit of a daze, I needed more sleep.  I got up and unpacked some of my stuff so I could get ready for the trip to the Kigali Memorial Center.  That of course took longer than I thought so I scrambled to the hotel restaurant for a quick breakfast.  The restaurant is an open-air patio with fruit and homemade bread.  I got some Rwandan coffee, a slice of bread and fresh pineapple.  It was very delicious, then the waiter guy brought me what I think was an omelet and I tried to eat as much of it as I could because I didn’t want to be rude.  It was kind of like a thin fried egg but I don’t like eggs in general so I could only handle a few bits before I was done.  Lucky I was supposed to go meet the bus, which gave me an excuse to leave.  The rest of the meal was wonderful.  For the bread there was this mixed red berry compote to put on it and fresh boiled milk for the coffee.  I think breakfasts will be my favorite meal here.

After a short trip on the bus we were let out at the Memorial.  It is a secure location and you have to get searched to enter by two guards.  They even take the metal detector wand to see if you are coming in with anything.  The memorial itself is like a garden with several paths.  If you didn’t know it was a memorial you would never know that there were 258,000 people buried beneath the concrete slabs.  It is a solemn experience to walk through the memorial. 

Inside the building there are three exhibits that talk about the history of the genocide and what lead up to it.  Then there is a room where there are simple 4 x 6 photos hanging on metal wires that line the walls. These are pictures of those who lost their life in the genocide.  In addition there was a small room where there were display cases of skulls and other human bones.  You see the people of Kigali are still today finding the remains of people murdered during the genocide and they are brought to the memorial center.

The last exhibit was upstairs and it was dedicated to the children of the genocide.  There were large pictures of children with plaques below with facts about each child.  The plaques listed things such as their name, how old they were, their favorite food, and always ended how they were killed.  The one that still sticks out to me was one child whose plaque read smashed against a wall.  Words used in the different exhibits were very colorful and they didn’t hold back.  I don’t know if that is because the events were so recent and people are encouraged to share their stories or what it is.

Yet as I walked through the memorial and read the exhibits I still felt like I was able to distance myself from the events.  It is like reading about the holocaust in history class in high school.  The events are tragic, horrific, and incredibly sad but if you say that was back then it is almost like a defense mechanism.  When it really starts to get to me is when I think of it in the context of the people we have gotten to know and how they couldn’t go through all the exhibits because it was still too difficult and emotional.  Then that makes it harder to put that distance between the events.

Lunch was at a hotel restaurant and took about 2hrs.  The meals are long here and a time to socialize.  It is hard to talk to people though because we are seated a long tables so you can’t really hear anyone except the people to either side of you.  Meal times turn into a game of telephone and yes the messages get messed up.  Such as when we were trying to say “cheers” in Kenya-Rwandan but by the time it reached our end of the table it sound like youhaveherpes.

When we finally finished lunch the bus made a stop at the hotel to drop off the instructor and I got off too, the rest of the group was going to exchange money.  I had a classmate do mine for me since I needed to take some time for myself and get in a nap.  I was kind of homesick which was made worse by being extremely tired.  I skyped with Em and my mom and that made me feel much better.  I felt even better after a long nap.

For dinner we went to some gorilla/jungle themed restaurant that was good.  The same buffet with the same food but we tasted this bread made out of maize that you dip in sauce.  The bread was bland but mixed with the sauce not bad.  The way you eat it is fun, you slice off a piece (it looks like a big scoop of ice cream) then ball it up in your hand like play dough until it is compact enough to dip.  We had crepes for desert that were sweet and tasted similar to a not so sugary donut.  The meal took about 3 hours and we were all tired by the end of it!