Our second day in Kigali we visited the Genocide Memorial Centre.
I had seen the movie Hotel Rwanda, I had read the book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, but I wasn’t prepared for the reality of being in Rwanda, walking past the graveyards and feeling the weight of their grief. The memorial is filled with videos of survivor accounts, unbelievable photos, inspiring quotes, beautiful grounds and silence. The most disturbing part of the experience is the photos are not in black and white, they are in color, a reminder of how recent the genocide occurred…21 years ago feels like yesterday. Survivors walk the streets, murderers walk the streets, ghosts of slaughtered parents and their children walk the streets. But shockingly the new generation of Rwandans (without a tribal name…) have the brightest smiles and the most magnetic energy I’ve experienced.
