Murambi & Nymata

Before coming to Kigali, I spent one year living ten minutes from New York City and commuting in for work, school, internship, and most of my free time. Most people witnessed the transformation this year had on me or saw the impact in who I was when I moved back to Illinois for six months before coming here. By the time Diane and I were driving home to Illinois, I was pretty much a shell of a person hollowed out by stress and regret. One year in New York City confirmed many of my less than desirable beliefs in human nature and my ability to and enjoyment (or lack thereof) in interacting with other humans. I valued personal space much more than even most Americans and my cynicism for life was at an alarming height.

Visiting Nymata and entering the church with walls riddled with bullet holes and blood stains from where babies were crushed against brick it is easy to say the world is evil. But, if you go on a Sunday morning, you will hear the church choir from across the street singing while you stare at the mounds of clothing piled on the church pews from people killed in the surrounding area. Outside the church lies the grave of a nun who, in 1992, had the courage to provide shelter to Tutsis seeking refuge and speak on international radio about the atrocities that were occurring. Pleading for help. She was murdered outside her home soon afterward. 

The smell of decomposed remains cased in limestone will be burned into my senses forever as a reminder that prejudice and evil and malice exist. Standing at a volleyball field that French soldiers created over a mass grave where hundreds of bodies were thrown and children strapped to their mothers’ backs were buried alive. With that weighing on my heart, I turn around and see the hills surrounding Butare and know that the world is filled with pain and suffering and unanswered pleas for help and sometimes, on sunny afternoon, life is beautiful. The existence of one does not exclude the presence of another.

I genuinely believe that good exists. Courage and strength and hope and love are real in a way that I have never believed in so fiercely. In the bustling of the city streets and the melodic rustle of wind through banana trees. I do not understand how my soul is healing in a place that has seen such soulless acts but I could not be more grateful.