The Church at Nyamata

A purple banner drapes the outside of the building which used to be the Catholic Church at Nyamata. Painted white letters on the banner boldly state, Iyo uza kwimenya nanjye ukamenya ntuba waranyishe – “if you know yourself and you know me, then you can’t kill me.”

Rwanda’s past is marked by one of the biggest failures of humankind. Faith in humanity was lost as friends killed friends, neighbors killed neighbors and one million people died. The story of the genocide has been told over and over; I won’t repeat it here. Countless news articles, books and films document what took place in 1994. Before coming to Rwanda, I read hundreds of these articles, several books and watched documentaries. I tried to remember where I was in April 1994; what was I doing? Since coming here, I’ve tried to put myself in the shoes of my Rwandan friends and colleagues. Where were they? What happened to them?

There is an unspoken rule or courtesy we respect in Rwanda - don’t ask people what happened to them during the genocide. In reality, almost everyone here was affected in some way or another. Almost everyone here has lost someone close to them (a friend or relative, or both) or they were perpetrators themselves. Imagine almost every single person was affected in a country with a population of 10 million, imagine. But we don’t ask. People go on with their daily lives; they respect each other, work together and live together. There is a time and place for mourning and remembering, for educating the new generations so that it never happens again. One of these places is the church at Nyamata, one of the many genocide memorials around the country.

The church ceased to be a house of God when ten thousand people were murdered there; 6,800 inside and another 3,200 outside. Charles was the young man who greeted us at the entrance and explained what happened. It was quiet (we were quiet) as he walked us through the church and the surrounding gardens. From the original broken down metal doors, to the tin roof with holes in it from grenades and gunfire 15 years ago, to the piles upon piles of dirty, blood stained clothes, he painstakingly explained what happened (it’s too gruesome to repeat here). Charles spoke barely above a whisper and sighed often, the stench from the clothes becoming more stifling by the minute.

We went outside and he took us underground to the mass graves. Some 40,000 people are buried at the church. The 10,000 that died inside and outside the church and another 30,000 who died in the surrounding area and whose remains were brought to the church for burial. Charles explained that the bodies which could be identified were put in coffins; all others were piled into the mass graves. Skulls and bones lined the wooden shelves as we descended the staircase. We were quiet. It was as if our breath had literally been taken away from us, you just cannot speak, and you cannot fathom what happened. You cannot.

No matter how much you read beforehand or how many films and documentaries you watch, it will never prepare you for what you experience when you visit one of these memorials. Why visit then? Because the memorials are some of the only ways families can begin to reconcile with what happened to their loved ones. They are places where victims can confront their perpetrators; they are places of education and understanding. They are not just places for Rwandans to visit and remember or mourn. Everyone, including foreigners, can learn and pay their respects. They are places where you meet people like Charles, one of only seven people that survived in the church; he was eight years old at the time. He is there everyday, sharing his story.