After we participated in the community works day our group loaded in the car for the two and a half hour drive to Lake Kivu, a large lake on the boarder of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. As we left the city we saw only a handful of cars, and maybe two or three-dozen people. It astounded me that the whole country participated so well in the community works day. Our two and a half hours turned into more four hours with an hour for lunch. We drove for an hour and a half and after two attempts at pulling our 15-passenger van into an odd space we went for lunch in a small restraint that served a buffet of traditional east African food. I am not sure if the food tasted so delicious because I was hungry, or because they cooked it better than Ugandan’s, but it was the best traditional food I had had on the trip.
We loaded back into the van and drove for half an hour in the wrong direction. To make up for lost time our driver decided to floor it. This would not have been an issue if the road did not consist entirely of the type of hairpin turns that scare people away from driving Berthed pass in Colorado. Each time we went around a turn I would need to use every muscle to keep myself in my seat. I sat in the middle and almost spilled out of my seat into the large space between the window seat and my seat. Claire, Courtney, and I felt the need to buckle our seatbelts for the first time in two months. Courtney almost had a heart attack and feared that we would spill over the edge. She crashed her car earlier this year on the Sea to Sky Highway, and experienced small flashbacks as we careened toward the lake.
The landscape of Rwanda amazed me. Each turn revealed more hills with terraced farming, and tiled roofs. It resembled what I would imagine the countryside of Italy to look like. A brown river wound it’s way through a few valleys, and we noticed a few streams. On the right side of the car the rocks that the road construction workers exposed glittered and glistened, as if someone threw sparkels on them. I imagined how much my aunt with ADOS (attention defficite ooo shiny) would like to see the rocks.
Around 3:45 we saw the lake out of the window. It nestled in with the mountains, but the other side seemed almost invisible. At 4:00 we unloaded at a church near the lake. Steve, our professor wanted to see the church because of the murals and the memorial shrine that the church constructed for the genocide. The church seemed like it jumped out of a fairy tale. It sat on a hill over looking a part of the lake that jettied in between the hills on one side, and on the other the lake wound its way around part of the town. The church itself found itself constructed of large stones with a tall bell tower. Stone steps lead to large wooden double doors offset to the right of the church. A large round stain glass window encompassed much of the wall on the left. We walked the steps to find people praying inside the church. The community situated the alter opposite a door on the side of the church, so we looked in and watched the people kneeling from the side. A stone path and wall wrapped around the church. We walked around in scilence to see the rest of the stain glass windows, and to look in on the murals to commemorate the genocide. On the other side of the church another doorway stood open. You could gaze inside and see the streaks of coloured light stream in and illuminate the concrete floor, and those people who prayed.
We walked back around and sat on the corner of the patio, gazing at the green hill and green blue lake bellow. It seemed so peaceful, so calm. Just behind us though, lay the mass graves of those who died here, and the building that displayed thirty sculls in the window with the words “Never Forget” written above. As we sat Steve told us how at that place some 11,000 people met their fate. The Hutu rebels had come with their machetes and guns to kill all those whom sought refuge in the church.
Eric brought one of the community members to talk to us. The women volunteered at the church and gave us a more indepth history of what happened. When the genoside started community members fled to the church, and another church on another hill. The one’s on the other hill were killed first and those whom survived ran to the church we visited. Thousands of people stayed in and around the church. One day the Hutu army came and demanded that the Hutu Priest give up the Tutsi he protected. He refused (which is more than you can say for many religious leaders who actually participated in masakers that occurred inside their churches). As a result the rebels killed the Priest and most of the Tutsi. For the third time that trip I could feel that I stood in the spot where someone lost their lives due to violence. My mind could not processes how twenty years ago violence disturbed and ruined the peacefulness and beauty of this area.
Georgia wanted to go back to Kigali, but we were able to convince her to let us go to the actual lake. Clair really wanted to put her foot in, and I told her I would join her. We drove around the lake until once again we realized we were going the wrong direction. We picked up a local and drove the other way. On the drive we saw traditional boats out to fish, and children swimming. We stopped of at a beautiful lakeside resort. Most of us agreed that we wanted to go there for our honeymoon. Georgia gave us half an hour. Claire and I ran around the hotel, out the gates, down a hill and finally got to dip our feet in the crystal clear (well once you got past the small edge of trash at any rate) cool water of Lake Kivu. We still had time left over so Claire and I situated ourselves on one of the walls that overlooked the lake and chatted about life, and the future. At that moment I understood what authors wanted you too feel like when the write “time felt like it was standing still.”
