On a Thousandth Hill.

Today the G.M. and Y.S. teams led a vacation bible school for about 15 children. This afternoon they visited an organization that works with orphans.

For the S.W. and Religion teams - a six hour drive would take us to our destination.

A city on a hill.

 

Right across the border from Tanzania is a small village that would go unnoticed by the usual tourist except for an event that occurred there during the 1994 genocide.

The six hour drive was filled with story telling, occasional sing-along to acapella versions of "Hey, Jude" or any song from "White Christmas." There was waving that occurred to the school children who yelled gleefully the inkinyarwandan word for white person whenever they caught a glimpse of our bus. 

Slowly but surely, with several stops to ask for directions, we reached our destination. We passed home after home, village after village, until all we were on was a red dirt road only fit

 for one vehicle. We saw exactly two trucks and one motorcycle on that dirt road. Beyond that, we were as far away from our homes in America as seemed possible.

The closer we got to our destination, the quieter we became.

Until finally we glimpsed the red brick Catholic church and a large sign saying, "Nyarubuye Genocide Memorial Site." Underneath was a

 simple statement, "In April 1994, 26,000 people were killed at this place."

Silence. Complete and utter silence.

We filed out of the van. Some of us going straight into the church, others of us taking our time to enter. 

26,000 people killed. At this one location. In the middle of nowhere by American terms. 26,000 people. That number is larger than my hometown's population. I tried to imagine the residents of my hometown strewn across the steps of the church, inside the church on it's altar, the pews. I wondered if anyone had attempted to seek shelter inside the confessionals covered by a simple purple sheet. Or if they knew their time was coming and took it bravely.

There is an image of God reaching down to heaven on one of the walls. The majority of the picture is missing, all you can see is God's hands and his ever flowing white beard and I have to ask, "Where were you God? Did you cry and scream as they cried and screamed?"

We visited the mass grave sites located in the garden in front of the church. Bouquets of flowers decorated the concrete slabs. Names of the families were etched into the concrete walls.

Then it was time for the tour.

We were taken into the area that was once a nunnery and is now a mausoleum in remembrance of the massacre. 

Once you walk into the buildings, you are greeted by a coolness that can only come from an escape from the African sun into an open hall of whitewashed walls.

Then you notice the pile of shoes and clothes on your right.

These shoes belong to the victims.

To those 26,000 who died in that one day. 

Those 26,000 who were killed by their neighbors.

I see children's shoes, mother's shoes, grandfather's shoes- shoes I would have worn. That my family might have worn.

Then on my left is a little alcove. 

In this alcove are bags. 

Immediately I dismiss them as storage. Perhaps some food. This isn't uncommon for items to be stored in these plastic bags that look like potato sacks. 

One of the sacks is open and inside I see a human skull sitting on top of what looks like remains. Remains of teeth and the pieces of a human that are too small to be in anything but a bag. I've found a family. One entire family in a bag big enough for potatoes. The  guide tells us

 that these remains weren't found until last year. This occurs still - finding bodies. The killers flushed several of the remains down the toilets which made them difficult to find.

In one bag is an entire family. A family of 12. 

These remains are to be buried in June.

Several of the remains are buried.

The remains of the people who were hacked up by the machete, a weapon that the guide calls "messy." 

When you go around the corner past the shoes and the clothes, a long line of tables greets your eyes. They look like movie props from perhaps a famous pirate movie. Or even halloween decorations.

But instead, they are the remains of those who died.

And at first I only see skulls. I only see bones.

I see the legs, the arms, the pelvic.

Then I think of the little children I had played with the day before.

I think of the women with their babies strapped to their back who wave cheerfully as we drive by. The old woman who shook my hand in greeting as we stopped to ask directions.

And now, they have faces, those bones.

And I see where they're cracked in certain areas. A face smashed in on one side, half a jaw hanging off. And I can imagine it. 

But I can't cry.
The guide shows us a wooden object that looks like a makeshift wooden boat. He says that they use it for making beer. This is the container that the Hutus would slice off the head of the Tutsis. They wanted to compare blood - not believing it was possible for them to have the same color blood as each other.

Complete and utter silence.

We file back into the van. 

Some are crying, others in shock.

The ride back takes three hours.

We are silent for at least two of these hours- almost as if we are having our own memorial service in our little bus.

On the ride down, one of the S.W. girls passed around her iPod for us to listen to this song called "Albertine" by Brooke Fraser.

One of the lines stuck with me - even before we entered that church. But just as we drove past those banana fields, the families, the children waving, the crowds at the local markets:

Now that I have seen, I am responsible

On the drive back, we began to realize that we were covered in dust. The red dirt road that took us to the church had entered our lungs, filled our fingernails and left a thin veil on our clothing. And the song continues:

And I am on a plane

Across a distant sea

But I carry you in me

And in the dust on, the dust on, the dust on

The dust on my feet

Rwanda

We will always carry this with us.