Closing In on Memorial Week

Cow dung as art. No, really.

This week was a slow week at school. It was the week before Genocide Memorial Week, and school morale was pretty low as a result. The day before break began (which is today, also known as Good Friday), students were already having upset moments and getting a bit teary-eyed during class.

So I kept it easy this week, and gave them a lot of down time to do whatever they needed to do before holiday. Like, say, for example, my final project that was due two days ago.....

But what do you say to your students, who have to endure a week-long break filled with painful memories and sad meetings, to wish them well? Have a good break? Well, that seemed insensitive and a bit naive. I felt a bit helpless - could I say anything that would be appropriate for this special circumstance? Have a peaceful break?

What do you say?!



I didn't know what to do, so I asked my students what happens during this week of memory. Some students mumbled about how the country gets very quiet and everyone goes to memorial services. There is no music allowed, unless it's memorial music, and memorial movies play all day and night on TV. One student looked at me with very serious eyes and said, "We get traumatized." Wow. That was a statement. It's kind of stuck with me since she said it - why have a week-long period of memory if it doesn't help? I mean, we have 9/11 memorials interspersed throughout the week every year, but we don't halt our lives for it. According to one of my older students in the evening, it used to be a lot more traumatizing. Imagine: they used to have life action role-playing of the genocide during the memorial week. Machetes and all! But then, the government realized that people were getting incredibly upset during the reenactments, and put an end to the "skits". I'm super, super glad they cut that little morsel of fun out of the memorial festivities.

My students are coming to terms with my leaving soon. They are beginning to understand that it's not them, it's my life that is making me make this change. Some have asked to come hang out with me over Memorial Week, but I don't feel like that's professional, so I told them about my travel plans outside of Kigali. One students wants to be my porter to the airport in May, and others are planning a get-together for me next week. Oh, and they all want me email address.

I've been enjoying the more leisurely conversations with my students lately. I showed them my passport yesterday, and they all commented how fat I used to be (when I took the passport photo in 2005). Yes, yes...I was bigger back then. But fortunately, they think I have a beautiful smile so it was okay I was so fat.

One of my students, Chantal, came to me after school, and ushered me to another room. She had tears in her eyes, but I didn't understand. She was saying goodbye to me, but I kept saying, "We have finals still, I'm not gone yet!" She handed me a letter in French, and I gave her a hug, and saw her walk away. Apparently she's leaving school, too, only now. She hasn't been able to pay her student fees, and isn't allowed to sit for final exams because of it. This was tragic news, especially considering how good of a student she is. My heart broke a bit.

Unrelated, I slept 11 hours last night and I felt awesome waking up. I got paid for my evening job, which was fantastic, and now I am planning on persuading Denise to go to Bujumbura with me.

Today, after I got paid, I asked my evening boss if there was a place to look for warrior-related artisinal souvenirs for The Man. I was determined, but I felt a bit lost about where on Earth I could go for some traditional gear like that. Well, he said, the tourists often go to a co-op called Caplaki (pronounced cah-plaque-ee). Read that one out loud. Doesn't it sound goofy??

So, I journeyed with a moto driver in a bright pink sweater through the hills and into some very pretty areas I'd never seen before in Kigali, towards Kiyovu. I won't lie - I felt absolutely lost. And funnily enough, so did the moto. We stopped 3 women with banana bunches on their heads, 1 car, 2 moto taxi men, and finally stopped at a hotel to get directions for Caplaki.

Caplaki is a very cute cooperative of artists tucked away between two hills behind the Kigali city center. The huts are painted bright colors, and you are ushered and welcomed (read: haggled) into each person's individual shop. It was like a treasure hunt, because these little rooms are CRAMMED with souvenirs and trinkets for every walk of life. Ebony gorillas on key chains. Brightly-painted beaded necklaces. Congolese and Rwandan face masks. Hand-carved ukuleles. Kitenge animal mobiles. Spears. Knives. Plates. Rugs. You name it, it's there hidden somewhere. But I found the booty for which I was hunting, and I triumphantly bargained the price down significantly for my goods. One thing I bought was a super simple style of artwork very commonly found around Rwanda. I decided I liked one of the basic designs, and the man points at it and smiles at me, saying, "Caca de vache. Cow shit!" Oh! Well, when you put it that way....But really, the painting traditional here is made from cow dung. Don't ask me why that's what they do here, but it is, and people love it. So of course I felt like I had to buy the cow dung artwork!

I spoke piecemeal Kinyarwandan, and Franglish otherwise, and everyone seemed shocked. Apparently, it's uncommon for a Mzungu to know any words in the Rwandan native tongue.

Feeling so good and inspired by my purchases, I decided to extend my adventure for the day. I flagged a moto and asked him if the Kigali Genocide Memorial Museum was open today, and he gave me a look and said something like, "Of course." I hadn't been there yet, and I felt it would have been a shame if I didn't at least try to see the big museum and mass grave. Especially during this specific time of the year, it only felt right to go see what's going on with this all week.

So I went, and meandered through the parking lot to the museum, a bit hesitant. What was I going to see, here? Was I going to be moved to tears? Was I going to throw up in disgust? I gulped down my anxiety, and entered the reception to be greeted by a delightful man. He explained everything I needed to know, and started encouraging me to purchase the audio tour, for a whopping $15. I looked at him with a grin and said, "But I have a visa!" He kept going on and on about where I was and how it was a useful tour guide, I pulled out my Rwandan Green Card, and he fell silent. He looked at it for a moment and said with a sigh of submission, "Well, you get in for free." Go me! I had resolved immediately, though, that I'd make a nice donation to the museum. So the man escorted me to the first place for the audio tour, and I started walking around (rather helplessly) the memorial site.

Apparently they have a lot of Memorial Week events there, because they were doing a lot of setting up, and everything was donned in purple. There are gardens surrounding the whole museum, so I walked slowly to appreciate the flora around me. And then I headed towards the mass graves. But I heard someone yell out, "Teacher!" I turned around, and my student Jackline came over to give me a hug. What a surprise! She asked me what I was doing there, and I said something about paying my respects. She introduced me to her brother, and explained she was there to visit her family. A lot of her family is buried in the mass grave here. She looked at me with a tear in her eye and said, "When I come here, I feel happy. I can be with my family." I didn't know what to say. What do you say to that? So I smiled, told her I'd say hello to them while I was down at the graves, and told her to have a peaceful week. It's amazing - that really put the whole trauma of the genocide in my backyard for me. This is real, this is still very real. My students are coming to be with their family members who were slayed during a period of brutality not that long ago.

These graves hold about 259,000 victims, and the numbers are always increasing. New graves are always found, more people are always discovered, and the memorial site have to make more room for more victims always coming in. Imagine knowing your loved ones are buried alongside (and on top of) thousands of other strangers! I cannot. And I looked on the Wall of Names, and I did indeed see a lot of people with her last name on the wall.

So I continued my journey through the museum, a bit more touched after my encounter. I must say, the place is very tastefully done - the mass graves are big underground chambers with flower baskets and bouquets on top of the slaps of concrete. All over the place are trees and flowers and climbing vines of green. It's very peaceful, actually. I didn't feel particularly upset, and I felt the place had a rather calm vibe to it. I meandered through the gardens for a while, and mused about some of the animals on the clay vases surrounding the fountains - one of them had a monkey with a cell phone!

Inside the museum, the images were a bit more graphic. Not too graphic, but graphic enough. I thought it was pretty well done, and very simple. But parts of me feel like the museum made the story line a bit too simplistic, and there were a lot of gaps and holes. And a lot of finger pointing. But I guess that makes sense... The museum's second floor was mostly dedicated all to genocides throughout the world - including the Balkans, the Holocaust, the Namibian Herero Massacre, and a few other genocides throughout recent history across the world. If you didn't know, a Jewish Polish lawyer in 1944 coined it out of Latin, meaning geno (group or tribe) cide (killing). And now, you know.

Part of me really appreciated them expanding the memorial for other cultures like that, but part of me really wish they hadn't opened it up so much to be so general, and instead focus on what happened right under our feet. I can't tell if I liked it a lot, or felt it had some things with which I didn't agree. But overall, it was a great experience.

I went home feeling fulfilled, and like I learned a lot. I ate some, talked with Denise some, and here I am now.