Monday 1st September
We have just spent 2 incredible days here in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. I will begin at the beginning.
Some time ago, Elly was involved in an event at the Holocaust centre, the Rescuers Exhibition, focussing on people who helped others during genocides.
She heard about a Rwandan woman, Faina, who lives in Hobart, and is a survivor of the genocide there. Faina was invited as keynote speaker to address the opening of the exhibition to speak of her experiences. Faina had never spoken about this traumatic time in her life, and was very nervous about speaking, but bravely did speak very powerfully.
Elly struck up a friendship with Faina, and we also later met her husband Aubert, ( pronounced as in French) who, it transpired, was going to be in Rwanda when we were.
Elly had discussed the possibility of setting up an arrangement to sponsor needy school children, and it was decided to investigate this when we met in Kigali. The village of Karama is the region of Faina’s family and she and Aubert support some small projects by running a coffee shop in Hobart where they buy Rwandan coffee and since it is run on a voluntary basis, all profits are sent back to this village. This is where the small private school is located.
Aubert and his brother, Norbert, picked us up at the hotel, and took us to the Genocide Memorial museum in Kigali, one of many throughout the country. It was too painful for him to enter the memorial, but left us to go in ourselves.
Having spent around 2 hours there, and subsequently speaking with Aubert, we were provided with an amazing insight into the catastrophic events here. Without going into too much detail, the conflict between the Tutsi and the Hutu began when the Belgians decided to classify them into separate ethnic groups, labelling the minority Tutsi more intelligent, and thus gave them most of the important positions in government. They also mandated ID cards which contained their ethnicity. After a revolution in 1961 and independence in 1962, an extremist president came to power. In 1963 some 10,000 killings took place, including Aubert’s father, and many Tutsis left the country into adjacent countries. Eventually, when they wanted to return, they were told there was no room. Rwanda was a dictatorship by this time and aggressively anti Tutsi
The government, aided by a rabid press, and radio, began a propaganda campaign, telling the people that the ” Cockroach” Tutsis were planning to take over the country, and should be eliminated, and if they tried to come back in, there would be no Tutsis left to meet them.
In April 1994, the attacks began, with the whole country grinding to a halt, as the sole business was killing Tutsis. People were chased down and butchered with machetes, raped, tortured and murdered. Life long friends would come to friends’ houses and murder the family, even family members would kill other members. Entire families were wiped out, including babies who were butchered as well.
1.2 million people were murdered in 3 months, that is more than 13,000 per day.
Thousands tried to take refuge in the churches, but one priest ordered the church bulldozed, and all the people were killed, and in another the murderers simply threw in hand grenades, and machine gunned all the people conveniently gathered in one place.
I asked Aubert how he managed to escape, and he said, basically, no one survived without help from a Hutu. I asked him if this was a friend, and he said, no, this was the amazing thing, old friends would come to kill you, but a stranger would help.
This man hid him in his house at night, and before dawn he would sneak out and hide in the bushes. He actually took us to the place where he hid and showed us the spot where he was very nearly discovered and killed. He was convinced he would die. In the meantime his mother, sisters and brother were murdered. Although physically separated from his wife Faina, and 6 month old daughter, they also managed to escape
Aubert’s brother, Norbert, had snuck off at age 15 to join a resistance militia, the RPF, which had formed with the intention of defeating the government forces, and eventually did. He survived. Aubert also had another sister, Assumpta, living in Paris at the time, and now lives back in Rwanda. She is doing research on the Holocaust, to try to relate and understand any similarities between that and the Genocide in Rwanda. She feels she must teach people about the events here, so they are not forgotten, which they otherwise will be, as the current government ( mix of Tutsi and Hutu) policy is to not discuss the genocide, and to ” Move on”. People are afraid to talk about it, as there is a fear they will be reported and punished.
We went to visit Assumpta, and had a fascinating 2 hour discussion with this intelligent, thoughtful woman, who has a small library of Holocaust literature at her home.
Next day we were driven by Aubert and Norbert to the south of Kigali, into the country, to visit the school we had been discussing. The school is 150 km south of Kigali in a small village called Karama. Along the way we picked up Gervais who is a former director of the school, and current board member. We arrived at the school, which is actually a private boarding school, to be very graciously welcomed by the staff. Don’t be mislead by the term ” private boarding school”, it is private because it is funded by families paying fees, and it is a boarding school because it is impossible to commute daily because of its remote location and lack of transport. Students have to provide their own uniforms, soap, mattress etc., nothing is provided.
With facilities such as they have, we hate to think what the state public schools are like, there is a science lab with practically nothing in it, and a computer room with about 20 old computers, which would have been obsolete 20 years ago, and most of which don’t work.
We are trying to arrange a facility whereby we can find people willing to sponsor a student, from year 10 to 12, which is when government support ends, and many students drop out due to lack of funds, even though everyone is desperate to continue schooling, as they all realise it is the only way out of the poverty cycle.
Fees are 70,000 Rwandan Francs per term, which is around A$110, and there are 3 terms. Another initial payment of A$110 for mattress replacement, uniform replacement etc. is an option which would be a one off contribution.
A sponsor would be paying for a specific student, selected as most needy and worthy, by the school staff, and an email link and details would be provided to the sponsor to make whatever contact they wish, and to give an identity to the sponsored student. The advantage of this system is that the money gets paid directly to the school, with no extras or percentages going to third parties
Elly and I are committing to a sponsorship and we will set that up on our return. If anyone reading this is interested in being a part of this exciting project, we would love to hear from you.
Lunch with Aubert, Norbert, Gervais & Jean Piere the school director.
Wednesday 3rd September
After meeting up with our old travelling companions, Bev & Andrew Gelbart on Monday night, we did a bit of looking around Kigali on Tuesday morning, and then our driver Gilles took us out to the North West on a 3 hour drive to the Volcano area, which is a large national park surrounding 5 volcanoes, most of which share borders with Congo or Uganda.
Views of Kigali
Kigali market.
Roadside memorial to the genocide
This is the area to which you can trek into the mountains to meet with the Gorillas, made famous in the movie ” Gorillas in the Mist” about the work done by Dianne Fossey who established a close relationship with the Gorillas, and was eventually hacked to death by poachers. Poachers are not a problem now, as the park is tightly controlled, and you must obtain a permit ( very expensive) and be accompanied by guides and rangers. Once you find the gorillas, who are located by the park trackers, you can only spend one hour with them, before heading back down.
This, of course, was not enough for Elly, so we had booked for the next day as well. We elected to do the “easy” trek and the shortest- about 1 hour they said. Medium trek to a gorilla family 2 hours and long trek 4 hours. After 2 hours and still climbing we were happy we chose easy as it was fairly demanding, but good to get some excercise.
This is big business now, and well organised, as the guides and rangers know all the many gorillas in all the families, along with their names, physical condition and position in the hierarchy. Even so, the road conditions leading to the starting point are atrocious, our driver Gilles calls it the Rwanda Massage, and the initial part of the walk, prior to getting to the forest, consists of muddy tracks through farmland. Realistically though, that is much better than having an over commercialised setup with bitumen roads and slick operators.
There were around 20 gorillas in the group we visited, although we only saw about 10. There were mothers with young ones ranging from newborn to about 3 years, and a magnificent Silverback ( most senior) which came down from the trees and sat directly opposite us, totally ignoring out presence, and snacking on some vines it had pulled from a tree. The sheer size and power of the animal was amazing, and I was thinking that it could do a lot of damage if it decided to get upset with the visitors. It did stand up and beat its chest at one stage, which was a bit scary, but the rangers controlled us well and kept things calm. Groups are limited to 8 people so things don’t get too crowded.
Our Grandson, Matcham, turned 3 today, and we called him to wish him a happy birthday before the trek, but wi- fi here is very poor, so talking was difficult. We managed a happy birthday song for him before the signal failed.
Thursday 4th September
This was our second gorilla trek, so up at 5:00am again. This time we were to visit a different group, called Agashya, meaning Special. It is named thus because of its one Silverback, who joined the group after the original Silverback died. This would normally result in the group dissolving, or a new male moving in and killing all the babies, before taking on all the females for himself.
Mr Special, as the guides call him, broke the mould, and moved in, was accepted by the females, and protected the whole group, including the babies and other young ones which normally would have been killed by the new silverback leader.
We had 2 new guides, Patrick and Mr D, who were excellent, and better and more informative than those the day before. We trekked for 2 hours along some steep and muddy paths, and heard that the trackers had located the group. We wound our way through dark bamboo forests as the first clap of thunder presaged the arrival of the rain. We had been lucky up until then, but now it was rain jackets and ponchos, as we came across the first gorilla, who was just sitting looking miserable ( apparently they don’t like rain). We were all standing there getting ourselves drenched, and trying to avoid the same fate for the cameras, directly in front of this male about 3 metres away. He is next in line for leadership when Mr Special dies, and he was completely unmoved by our presence.
Mr Special’s successor.
The guides told us that when the rain stopped we would see some activity, and that proved to be so. Mr Special himself was just 10 metres down the track, and as the rain stopped, he moved up towards us, and we were told to squat down displaying submissiveness, which we did, and he moved up to us and right on past. He passed so close to us, we could have reached out and touched him. Then came a trail of mothers and babies, as well as small juveniles. One actually brushed up against Elly as she was photographing.
The guides were grunting and making play type noises to try to encourage some interaction, as we followed the group through the bush. The young ones were playing and rolling around together having great fun and also totally ignoring us as we photographed them. Elly was beside herself as a potentially rain spoilt visit turned into a fabulous show. At one stage we saw a female walk up to Mr Special, and lift her left arm to give him a hug, the guides were thrilled to see that, saying that was a really rare thing to see, and represented a really affectionate display, in effect, ” I really love you and I am glad you are my male”.
Our hour was up too soon and we headed back down along the most muddy, wet, slippery trails, supported very kindly and efficiently by the porters. We ended with mud up to our knees, as well as being filthy and only partially dry but elated with our experience. The close interaction with these wild, massive animals in their natural environment, is unique and they seem to welcome us and almost enjoy our presence.
Friday 5th September
Raining all day but managed to take some photos on the way back to Kigali.
