A Bittersweet History Lesson

Last weekend I had to leave Tanzania to renew my visa. Seeing as how I am already leaving the country for spring break in two weeks, the timing was unfortunate, but it led to a surprise trip to Kigali, Rwanda. Rwanda wasn’t even on my radar, but my roommate went last year and said it was a nice city, so I went.

A nice city is an understatement. By the standards I’ve been living, it felt like a Trump vacation to Mar-a-Lago. A lot of money has been invested to build up the infrastructure of a city that lost its soul and was heavily traumatized by the genocide that occurred there in the 90s. I felt like I walked through a portal into an advanced western city and I’m not gonna lie, it felt good. Prices skyrocketed, but so too did my level of comfort. 

It was such a strange city. There were beautiful, gigantic houses with gorgeous lawns and security all around. Apartment complexes were going up everywhere. The streets were lined with perfect landscaping. The airport was advanced and modern. There were proper shopping malls and everything was carefully planned out and civilized. This is what I noticed on first glance. But upon walking around, I began to notice all the in betweens. The streets here and there that were lined with traditional African housing rather than gaudy mansions. Women carrying produce on their heads instead of carrying shopping bags in their hands. People eating street food instead of eating sushi. And suddenly I got a sense that there was a huge divide in this city. Between the rich and the poor. The ex-pats and the locals. The future and the past. 

On Sunday we visited the genocide memorial. I’m embarrassed to admit that I knew nothing about what happened there in 1994. I was only nine, so it’s not a total surprise that I don’t remember it, but it’s still shocking that it’s not something that was taught later in history class like the holocaust. It’s even more shocking what happened. In less than 100 days, 800,000 Tutsis were murdered in their homes, on the streets, by their neighbors and by their friends. Not to mention the millions of Rwandans who were displaced and became refugees during this time. It was orchestrated by the government, carried out by the people and widely ignored by the world. So ignored that even to this day, most people I know don’t even know what happened. 

After we visited the museum, I walked out with a very different view of this city. This history seems to have been consciously erased from the outside. Replaced with a bustling and seemingly perfect urban dream. Was this an attempt to forget what happened? Or was it an attempt to atone for it? I don’t know. But what I came to realize that day was that nearly every Rwandan I spoke with had a high likelihood of harboring some very real and recent memories of the atrocities that occurred. As I spoke to people back at the hotel, I couldn't help but think gruesomely to myself: “This person might have watched his family be hacked to pieces before his eyes.” It was only 23 years ago. Kigali is probably filled with thousands and thousands of people who have not forgotten. Have not erased it. Who never will. That was a feeling that was really hard to shake. And I guess I shouldn’t want to shake it because forgetting that feeling adds to the tragedy I think.

This city made me feel all kinds of things. Guilt and shame for how little I had known or cared about the genocide. Peace and relief at how safe and advanced everything seemed. Excitement to be away from the mundaneness of my modest life. Exhausted from the great lengths we traveled to move about the huge city.  

My trip to Kigali also made me oh-so-aware how not cut out for rural life I am — it was pretty apparent when I was overcome with a fair level of dread when I had to leave.  I’m a little ashamed of the sense of security and relief I got from knowing that I could order a cup of iced coffee made from real beans or that I had options for meals that went beyond fries and rice or that there were police all over the city protecting us through the night. I had a number of people tell me “you can walk here at midnight and you are perfectly safe.” In my town, we don’t walk past dark. I moved to rural Africa knowing that it would be small and slow, but I guess I wasn’t prepared for how isolated and lonely it would feel. I didn’t know how important it was to me to have places to go when I feel anxious or people to go visit when I feel alone. Without those things, I often feel trapped. 

In just a couple months I'll be back to the reality of the western world. I imagine in many ways it's going to be tough to return to, though right now I find myself aching for it. So the challenge I’m facing is to look around me in those moments of panic and remember why I came here in the first place: to learn to slow down, to be okay with the stillness, to spend time with myself. These were goals of mine because it’s something I’ve always been bad at and boy am I bad at it.


My PSA: Today, April 7th, is the 23rd anniversary of the day the genocide began and the beginning of a week of mourning in Rwanda. If you don't know much about it, take some time to look it up. It's awful and sad and something we should all know more about. Today's a perfect day to learn.