The most T.I.A. moment of the trip so far happened last night when a few of us got on our taxibus to go to our respective homestays. We settle in and suddenly one of the girls in our group yells "Oh my God there's a chicken under me!" Yeah... So someone had stored their (live) dinner under her seat, and the poor chicken, with its feet tied, had fallen over right under her feet and was clucking like crazy. T.I.A.

Anyway, the past few days in Kigali have been draining. Yesterday we went to some genocide memorials, which were incredibly moving. First we visited a church in which 5000 people were killed. You walk in and there's a wall full of bones and skulls, some with clearly visible machete marks in them and another with a big nails still stuck in the top of the skull. As you turn around to see the whole church, you realize that it is COVERED in clothes. It's sort of a similar feeling as the place in Auschwitz where all the personal items are stored. Each dress, each piece of fabric, each blood-soaked shirt belonged to someone. I stood in front of this green dress with little white designs on it, and big blood stains, for several minutes. I was trying to imagine this dress on a woman that I could see walking down the street. I also tried to link that dress with a skull. It's so unfathomable to be in a place where 5000 people were killed that all I could do was put one face, one dress, to the whole tragedy in that church.
Apparently, the display as we saw it was quite recent. Before, it had just been left how it was in April 1994 - bodies and items all over the floor. I think that would have just been too much.

Next, we went to another church where 10,000 people had been killed. It wasn't a big place so it was hard to imagine 10,000 people packed into it, but the mounds of clothes all over the seats and floor helped with the realization. It was almost nauseating. At both churches there were still blood stains on the walls, and at the second church the original fabric was still draped over the box-table thing at the front, but it was drenched in blood. It's so unimaginable, but being there was as close as I could get to imagining it.
In the back of the church are some mass graves. You walk underground, as if you're walking into your own grave, and are surrounded by coffins, about 10 feet high, each containing about 20 people's remains. The next mass graves is just bones, from floor to ceiling, far too close for comfort. It was incredibly creepy, but I guess that's the point of having the artifacts displayed like that.

As we drove back to Kigali from the churches, I saw a few people walking along the street with hoes, going to their gardens. Then I saw two men with machetes. I literally gasped. It was such a terrifying feeling.

After lunch we went to the memorial center in the city, which is more of a museum. There are also some mass graves outside that house, wait for it, 258 THOUSAND people who were killed within the city alone. The guide paused after 258, so I started imagining 258 people, which is a number that I can imagine, even though it's big. When she added the thousand to it I almost fell over. It's unimaginable.
The museum is really well done and very moving, although I wasn't able to see all the exhibits because the power went out near the end.

These memorials, although they're difficult, are the reason why I came to Rwanda. I want to get a feel for what happened, but at a more visceral level than I could get through a book or even a documentary.