Rwanda Travel Diary: Kigali and the Genocide Memorial

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09.12.2013 Kigali (Rwanda)

The Uganda-Rwanda border is shrouded in fog; there is only a barrier showing the names of the two nations, with a bored policeman watching the few people passing through... we, with our big truck, cause a great deal of curiosity. The customs formalities are quick and in a few minutes we leave Uganda to cross the small no man's land on foot. Welcome to Rwanda.

The landscape changes completely. Who would have expected Rwanda to be like this? Well-paved roads, well-kept green lawns, little concrete houses...

We quickly reach the capital: Kigali. We have lunch at "Economatt" with baked potatoes and samosa before reaching the gate of the "Genocide Memorial".

I thought that after Auschwitz and Phnom Penh I had processed absurd, senseless situations to be condemned... but it was not so. The museum begins with a historical-political presentation of Rwanda, from the arrival of the Belgians up to the bloody genocide of the Hutu and Tutsi, passing through an exhibition dedicated to the children and ending with the massacres of the last century around the world. The madness, the stupidity of man has no equal. I read, watched footage and listened to harrowing firsthand testimonies; people killed, families wiped out by friends, by neighbours, work colleagues or schoolmates simply because they were of another ethnicity. How is it possible that the world once again stood by and watched? I was amazed, thinking that the Cambodian slaughter had happened in 1979...

but here we are talking about the 1990s! I am even more proud of my work if, through it, I could help fight situations like this.

We come out of the museum just as the sky releases all its anger with huge drops that in a few minutes flood the whole of Kigali, almost as if all the angels had been moved with us.

We set off for Kibungo, still shocked and silent... we are approaching Tanzania.

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