Today we visited the ‘Kigali Genocide Memorial’…
I cried before I got there… I cried while I was there… and I cry some more while I write this… and that will not be enough crying … so you might have guessed this may be an uncomfortable read… but it is in that place of discomfort that feeling can be so deep… deep enough at times to carry a flame that lights a torch of awareness and change that then gets passed on to the people around is fuelled by passion…
And so if you are interested in the lead up to…. and the history of the actual ‘Genocide Event’ in Rwanda … and they are not the only ones as we know…. then please educate yourselves in that…
But on a personal note I want to share a story about the tragedy of it in action and it’s an uncomfortable conversation to have… but it must be had!
I mean can you imagine what it would be like? Friends you have shared your dinner table with suddenly turning on you and killing you because they were some how provoked to believe you were an inferior race….
And it wasn’t just killing it was suffering… it was using hatchets, it was starving, dismembering and throwing babies against walls… uncomfortable yet? No apologies from me… it was torture, it was raping women over and over again it was … as one survivor described… like Rwanda went to another planet and nobody even noticed… it was devastation beyond the understanding of anybody I know.
When I went into the room that reflects on the children… the senseless slaughter of children… innocents… and when they show you the photos of the children and tell you how they died… well about now you are sobbing and wondering who you are in all of this…
And then I meet Olivier on my way out… his picture I have featured here and his story they shared …
Olivier was 10 years old when the Genocide occurred… he was in the ‘unlucky’ tribe… when they heard his Dad had been killed they all cried and his Mum called on them to pray…
His prayer was to ask God for revenge and this was his mothers reply…
‘You must remove the part about revenge from your prayer’… She said… ‘Even if I die, do not take revenge’
And that is the theme with so many of the survivors… we forgive, let us move forward… and many of them have learnt about the value of sharing their stories to help heal others… their strength and emotional courage in such unimaginable, horrific and devastating circumstances gives me such perspective and gratitude for my life…