Day 4

This morning we checked out of St. Paul’s hotel at 8 AM and drove to the Kigali Genocide Memorial for our full-day ‘Peace and Values’ training. We started the training with a kinesthetic warm-up. Then, we were given hand-outs to coincide with each section of the training, such as the ‘Continuum of Violence’ by Ervin Staub and the ‘Continuum of Benevolence’ by Thomas Vincent Flores. For the Continuum of Violence, we split into groups and matched ten stages with their definitions. During our discussion, we drew parallels between the stages of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi and current events in the United States. I have heard many human rights activists posit that the United States is in the later stages that occur before a mass atrocity. Verbalizing the amount of danger we are in is startling. We listened to a short video about two boys, Martin and Jacques, who were best friends during the genocide. Jacques lived with Martin and his family, despite their initial hesitancy and bias. Soon after, the two families became close friends. We each received a slip of paper with one of the stages in the ‘Continuum of Benevolence.’ Mine was “7. Connection: when a person feels a positive relationship with someone else.” I was asked to identify where in the story this stage correlates to. Next, a presenter narrated three stories of children during the genocide—a survivor, a witness, and a rescuer—using a poster with illustrations. Once we saw and listened to each story, we were asked to identify a lesson we learned from them. Afterward, we formed a circle and collectively took a few breaths together. Then we moved outside to the balcony to engage in our final exercise. We were given slips of paper with real scenarios of survivors, perpetrators, and descendants on them, and then asked to imagine we were that person. Mine was, “I am 21 years old living with my siblings, my parents were killed in the 1994 genocide.” This scenario struck a chord with me because, although I am an only child, I am 22 years old and the thought of my mom or grandparents being killed greatly distresses me. A list of statements were read to us about forgiveness and we were asked to take a step forward, backward, or in place–as the person in the scenario–depending on if we agreed, disagreed, or felt neutral about the statement. It was interesting to see where people stood at the end of the exercise–we were all in different places–and how our responses differed to those given the same scenario. We were told that forgiveness, while central to Rwanda’s reconciliation process, is a patient and nonlinear process that is encouraged but never forced. At the end of lunch, I decided to continue my tour of the Kigali Genocide Memorial and ventured into the Children’s Room. I was saddened to see all of the children’s photographs and epitaphs. A few inscriptions stood out to me, one of which was a 17-year-old boy who was killed at Nyamata, the church I had visited the day before yesterday. I was horrified to read how children–infants to teenagers–were killed with machetes, burned to death, or had their eyes gouged out. Later, I went to the gift shop with Magdaline and Jonise to look for books about the genocide. I purchased a book titled, “Rwanda After Genocide: Gender, Identity and Post-Traumatic Growth” by Caroline Williamson Sinalo and an English-to-Kinyarwanda phrasebook. Afterward, we returned to the bus and traveled to our new destination, Muhanga, which is Buffalo’s sister city! We took an evening tour of Urukundo Learning Center and met Mama Arlene, the school’s founder. The sunset from Urukundo’s barn was pretty and their cows were cute. We stayed for dinner before returning to our new hotel, the Splendid.