Rwanda: Genocide and Countryside

7/22/07 Kigali and the Countryside
I keep feeling like I'm in a movie. This morning we had brunch at the restaurant on the top floor of Les Milles Collines. As we munched on passion fruit and crepes there was a group of white businessmen discussing Rwandan investments the table over. They all had British accents. I felt like they were discussing the diamond trade or something scandalous and exotic like that. Another strange attribute of the hotel - in the bar by the pool downstairs, all they play is Christina Aguilera music. Oh, wait, there was one exception. As we were having a drink, "America the Beautiful" came through the speakers. I was like, what, am I really hearing America the Beautiful at a Rwandan Bar that harbored people from genocide. How is this my life.

On a much, much more somber note - after breakfast we left the sanctuary of the hotel for the dusty streets of the city, and drove to the Genocide Memorial Museum. It's beautiful, clean, and unbelievable. Apparently we were visiting on the anniversary of the end of the genocide, and had to wait to visit the museum until their memorial service ended. The museum was surreal. I got so queasy and was asking God how he was real if he let this stuff happen. They killed one million people. They were absolutely ruthless. Like, they hacked babies to death. They buried people alive. They bulldozed a church full of people. I saw the pictures. Stuff you can't even imagine. I found myself thinking if like is so, so easily thrown away - does it even matter at all? I don't know the genocide doesn't even seem real to me. It seems impossible. But it happened.

I am already less impacted, and my queasiness is dissipating as I write this, and it has only been a few hours. How quickly we forget. I feel like so much has happened in these few hours though. After the memorial, we drove three hours through the Rwandan countryside and omigosh - it was ridiculously beautiful. Just amazing, National Geographic amazing. Luscious hills, covered with banana trees, patchwork fields and quaint village farms. There were bubbling clear streams that you would see women and children carrying water from with fruits and vegetables, loads on their heads and babies strapped to their backs. I'll describe it more later!