Tuesday, September 18, 2007
September 18, 2007
We rescheduled our visit to the Kigali Memorial Centre to today. It's a genocide memorial where over 250,000 bodies (or parts of bodies) are buried, with room for more because bodies are still being found. All of the people who work there are genocide survivors who tell their stories every day. The displays were at times difficult to look at, but it's important for people to understand because genocides keep happening. People here seem hopeful about the future and proud of the progress Rwanda has made in rebuilding, healing, and reconciling.
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4 comments:
Dear Ellen,
Thank you for taking the time to write about your visit to the Centre - people need to know what's there and I'm glad it had a personal impact on you. The Centre is managed by a UK organisation, the Aegis Trust. It also runs Aegis Student Societies in the UK and Rwanda to try to raise awareness of our work and to engage young people in the fight against racism and to support the work of the Centre.
Steve Robinson - Kigali Memorial Centre
Hi Ellen
Glad to read that you made it safely to Rwanda (umm..., it took forever to get there - I want to hear the travel details).
Your blogs are so well written, are you a writer/editor or something? It is good balance against my often too lighthearted (some would say intellectually unstimulating) attitude. And speaking of that, OJ is in trouble and you're not here to help him.
Steve...Thank you for your comments. I will feel the impact of the Kigali Memorial Centre forever and will do what I can to spread the word. The Centre and the people I met there provided a powerful experience. You do good work there.
Anonymous...I don't know who you are of course (yeah, right...), but as a possible industrial hygienist, you might be interested to know that the lovely lake I'm looking at right now (Lake Kivu) has methane gas in it. Apparently it explodes every now and then. I wonder what that looks like. The local newspaper yesterday had an article about mermaid children---kids who live on an island in Lake Kivu who swim to school every day. This journey is an hour and half long. Incredible.
Hi Ellen,
Glad to see that you have arrived safely and are getting to see a lot. I read the following article today and it reminded me of your blog entries. Cant wait to hear about your trip.
C
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/arts/20070919_ALBUM_FEATURE/index.html
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