Nyamata

*Warning: this post contains explicit content that may not be suitable for some readers.

Thirty minutes outside of Kigali on the pothole-free, paved road, smoother by far than most roads back home, the town of Nyamata is bustling with activity.  Here, I was acutely reminded that I am working in a country with an enormous tragedy in its near past.

Nyamata was the site of one of the most brutal massacres of the genocide in 1994.  One church saw 10,000 people murdered within its walls in just two days.  This church is now the site for a memorial to the victims of the genocide and their families.

As you enter the church, light streams through holes blasted in the tin roof by guns and grenades.  The brick and concrete in the entranceway have chunks missing as well.  As you walk through the church, you are surrounded by pews strewn carefully with the actual clothes of the victims.  Many pews have planks of wood missing where people pried them up in vain attempts to defend themselves.  The altar at the front of the church is adorned with the original altar cloth, which is stained with blood.  On the altar is a machete, a panga, and a rosary blessed by Pope John Paul II.  

As you continue past the bullet-ridden baptismal font, a small, slightly raised section is covered with more clothes: shoes, trousers, the shorts of a small child.  Here, attackers threw infants against the wall one after another to expedite the killing process.  

Descend a staircase, you enter a new tiled room that mirrors two others just like it behind the church building.  Here, lines of shelves on both sides hold row after row of human skulls, over 40,000 in all including the many remains brought to this place from all over the region, even to this day.  Many are disfigured or contain clues to the cause of the person's death: a widened eye socket, a bullet hole in the temple, a cracked forehead, or a cranium caved in beyond recognition.  Shelves above and below hold femurs, clavicles, and other bones.  Currently, all that separates you from these morbid artifacts is the musty air, heavy with the most deafening silence I have ever encountered.  The enormity of the situation is utterly incomprehensible.

Walking around Nyamata today, you would never guess such a tragic event lies in the past of such beautiful and gracious people.  The town is bustling with business and development agencies, looking ahead with hope, yet not forgetting the past.  

As of today, I call Nyamata home.

The Millennium Village office is in the heart of Nyamata and the house I found is a five minute walk away.  A few days ago, I met the staff and everyone seemed genuinely happy and excited that I am here to document their work and the stories of their friends and families.  On Monday we are having a meeting to discuss the best way for me to go about my work, and to make a tentative schedule to maximize my time.

My roommates are amazing.  Amir is a mid-twenties rastafarian-type who is incredibly easy going and really into photography, and Karen is a lovely eternally happy woman who exudes positive energy and seems to be emitting light.  Both are from the U.S. and I foresee many long nights of talking and laughing ahead.  At the moment, I am accessing the internet with a wireless EVDO USB modem I bought in Kigali and it is working surprisingly well.  I am consistently amazed at technology.

More to come soon, including pictures of the area and hopefully some video.  I have decided to post a short video clip every day or every few days that gives a small window into the area and the people.  It won't even necessarily have music or be edited, just a short little clip from the filming of that day.  I hope I can make that work.  More to come soon...