Day 2

Our group was introduced to Prince Moses and another man who explained the Prison Fellowship to us. During questions, I asked him, “What is the role of the descendants of survivors and perpetrators in the reconciliation process?” He told me that descendants have an important role in the reconciliation process. The legacy of genocide weighs heavily on them due to generational trauma and shame. Many descendants work to educate about the genocide and advocate for human rights. The descendants of perpetrators try to persuade their parents to repent and reconcile. After the presentation, our plans changed from the reconciliation village to the Nyamata Genocide Memorial. Rwanda’s public memory is very different from the United States in that their sites of memory have been preserved exactly as they were discovered. I was apprehensive to continue with the study away program after I learned about this part of AFP’s itinerary in Fall 2022. How could I preserve my sanity, my peace of mind, my love of life, or my faith in God after witnessing the aftermath of genocide? I had a long conversation with Drew that encouraged me to continue. Although one cannot truly be prepared to witness such sights, I spent months working with my therapist to prepare myself as adequately as possible. As an undergraduate student focusing on the prevention and education of genocide, it was important that I visit this site. The journey to Nyamata was thirty minutes long. My ears popped and I got a mild headache as the bus climbed up higher into the hills. I carried my hat and water bottle and left my bag on the bus. Our tour guide instructed us to read the signs outside the building, which explained the history leading up to the church’s massacre. I stood at the entrance of the church and observed the exterior. A grenade had damaged the gate, leaving a shallow crater, widening the metal, and sending shrapnel through the roof. As someone with a Christian background, it is horrifying how people were brutally tortured and murdered in this church—a ‘sacred’ place. Drew once told me that it is still sacred, but in a different way. I stepped through the threshold into the church. The entire floor was covered in what I believe was dried blood and there were several small craters in the floor. The roof is covered in holes and light seeps in from them. There were short, wooden pews with folded piles of discolored clothing on top. One that stood out to me was an infant’s pink babydoll dress covered in blood. There were dozens of caskets draped in white cloth side-by-side with each other. The alter cloth was splattered with blood and a statue of Mary had specks of blood on it. It is haunting how this statue, a figure of the divine, ‘witnessed’ the massacre. A glass case of the victims’ belongings are present in the back of the church. There is a crypt that was created in the church’s basement. I was one of the last people to walk down into it. My legs felt like lead as I walked halfway down the stairs to peer at a large glass case of bones and skulls—many of which had marks on them. A coffin underneath belongs to a young woman who was gang raped before being impaled with a stick until she died. I could not bring my legs to walk down further, so I walked back upstairs. We walked outside to the mass grave, and again I was one of the last people to walk down into the crypt. Drew steadied my hand as I climbed in. I managed to walk down to the bottom until I became too overwhelmed by the narrow corridor and dozens of coffins—each with a name and photograph of the victim—on either side of me. It felt surreal, like an out-of-body experience. I was surprised that I did not cry after everything I had just experienced. I felt guilty that I couldn’t. This year is my first year of studying genocide and it has been very distressing. I gained weight, my hair fell out, I had frequent anxiety attacks, crises of faith, doubt, crying spells, and insomnia. That being said, I frequently journaled about my feelings, put in a lot of work during therapy, and had a strong support network that helped me through it. I can say that I did feel adequately prepared, but I will need time to process it in therapy when I return home. Next door to the memorial was a school with children playing during recess. One of their teachers was playing soccer with them. The juxtaposition of the two buildings next door to each other was unusual but hopeful. We lingered outside the memorial for a long time before walking over to view the reconstructed church. Afterward, we visited the reconciliation village. The village is inhabited by survivors, perpetrators, and those who fled but returned. A survivor and a perpetrator gave us their testimonies. Recently, two of their children married each other. I asked two questions for Prince Moses to translate. The first was, “What is both of their definitions of forgiveness? What is forgiveness for both of them?” The perpetrator explained that, for him, forgiveness is absolution. The survivor explained that, for her, forgiveness is peace of mind, healing from trauma, and seeing the good in the perpetrator. My second question was, “Have the children of the perpetrator experienced generational shame and have the children of the survivor experienced generational trauma, and if so, how did they cope with it leading up to their marriage?” The perpetrator said he had a responsibility to tell his children the truth about his involvement during the genocide. The survivor said that by forgiving the perpetrator, she showed her children a model of forgiveness. She requested her family to collectively forgive the perpetrator so they could live as neighbors alongside him. Prince Moses explained that the reconciliation village is an example of restorative justice. I bought two ‘peace’ bracelets from the village.