thursday:

yesterday we drove to Kayonza again and upon arrival continued with our digging for the morning. we managed to almost complete the foundations of the building and by the end of it our hands were blistered and some were bleeding. we hopethis showed the Rwandans how hard we tried!

while digging Will Ayles got out his Bagpipes much to the amusement of the gathering crowd. he gave us a version of Clocks by Coldplay and they could not work out what the strange thing will was blowing in was. when we finished digging there was a great roar from us and the crowd around us. we felt that we worked hard and with the people there. a good two day's work we thought...

in the afternoon we had the opening of the unfinished football pitch and the youth cntre hall. a marque was set up and two banana trees had been uprooted and then placed in the ground in front of the plaque which we had rought out from england. what we all found amusing was that a piece of our own Upper (the pitch in Rwanda will be called 'The Upper, Sherborne'), and we had laid the piece of turf at the base of the plaque. we know now that there will always be a bit of Sherborne in Kayonza.

we were given many speeches from the local representative of the government and from Philbert and a couple of prayers in Rwandan. unfortunatly we didn't really undersdtand this. the government man then cut the ribbon between the tree's, unveiled he plaque and told people about the grass. throughout the ceremony there was a crowd of about 150 and whatever was said was translated into Rwandan or English. The rev also laid the corner stone of the building.

After this we went to the football match where we had an interesting match to say the least. it was certainly competative, and Harry Edwards 'put in a sterling perfomance, with nearly a hat trick.' many compared him to Wayne Rooney. unfortunatly despite all of our best efforts the opposing team was just too good. they had been told we would be as good as Arsenal or Manchester United (or something like that). so they had been training for a long time (unlike us!). the team we were up against ranged from the youngest at 17 until the oldest at 27.

more later....

Days gone by....

Hi. sorry about the appalling lack of communication we have had recently. we have been plagued by bad internet and power cuts!!!!



i'l tell you whats been going on as if it's the day we got back...



tuesday:

today we visited another memorial museum in Murambi which is in the very south of Rwanda. As we arrived a man and a woman came forward and through Philbert they told us a very moving story of their accounts of what happened at the time of the Genocide. The man had been shot in the head and been left for dead and somehow he survived hiding in a school (the school had been turned into the memorial afterwards) underneath lots of dead bodies for days on end. when he finally had the strength he crawled away in the night into the valley. he stays at the memorial almost everyday because he believes that is where his family is (they were buried in one of the mass graves there) and that he should be with them.



we were then led round the outside with no explanation of what we were going to see. there was a row of class rooms. we lined outsde them and people went in one by one. as they came out a look of horror was apparent in each face. as i went in i saw what was so sad. dead bodies (treated), skeletons (some still with clothes on the bones) were laid out. the smell was aweful and we could hardly bare to stay in there for very long. there were about 15 class rooms each with about 50 bodies. the worst room of all was one filled with the remains of children and babies.



after our tour we left the area and had a long 3 hour drive back. we had all been very very moved by what we saw and all felt slightly nauseus. we did not understand how such complete and utter cruelty could be felt in humans. how could one human do this to another????







wednesday:

today we drove to Kayonza. this is where Reach has been building the football pitch. our task for the day was to dig the foundations for the Youth Centre which will be positioned next the the pitch. After about half an hour of digging, Lane, Cooke, the Rev, Gary Shackle, Brother John and Pete the photographer and myself left Kayonza to visit some perpetrators and survivors of the Genocide and to hear their stories.



we went to the house of a woman who had been badly beaten and tortured in '94. one of the obvious injuries which we could see was that her ear had been cut in half. she said how the Hutu's had come and killed the whole of her extended family. luckily her brother had escaped to Tanzanier (we were not that far from the border) but she had been caught before she was able to get away. then came the hardest and most emotional part of the day for us. Philbert called into the house and two large and burly men came out. We hugged them (as you do....) and shook hands with them. we were then told that these men were the ones who, in a group, had murdered at least a hundred members of her family. i had never knowingly met a killer, let alone a mass murderer, and i found this very hard to come by. we were told about their struggle to get over what they had done and how they had sought and begged forgiveness for what they had done (they had been in prison for ten years). the woman had not been able to forgive them for many years and eventually she had realised that it was the right thing to do. now they are friends and are comfortable around one another. because the killers lived 12 miles away they walked to where we were, but they had arrived the evening before and stayed at her house.

i felt especially overpowered by the fact that if i were in her case i do not think it would be possible to forgive those men if they had killed my whole family, cousins, brothers, sisters and parents...



we drove to another house to talk to a former member of the government at district level. this mean she had influence over about 40 houses. she gave out propoganda telling all hutus to kill and destroy the Tutsi 'crock croaches'. she told which hutu should be hunting which tutsi. she spent 6 and half years in prison) and when she came out had help from Reach to realise what she had done was so so wrong. she had to do many hours of community service (like building houses and the like) and even though she is no longer obliged to do so, she still does.



then we drove back....

day 1- Genocide Memorial

we just got back from the Memorial Museum. it was an amazing place and made us all feel very shocked by what we saw. the museum was in three parts: the largest was the one about the Rwandan Genocide itself, with one exhibition about genocides in general and the most disturbing one of larger than life pictures of children with facts about them (i.e. their favourite colour and last words etc.) and then how they were brutally killed. this made us all feel shocked at how evil a human being could possibly be.






the weather has turned against us as well a little bit, unlike this mornings great weather it has been raining and overcast but we have high hopes for the good weather to return tomorrow. we are going to be visiting another genocide memorial museum sometime in the day and then who knows?




pictures:


onslow, zimmer, whiteaway and ritchie at the Genocide Museum













one of many plaques at the Memorial Museum











at the bottom of the garden there were lots of these concrete blocks which we found out were mass graves. at this Centre alone there were 258 000 people buried there. to this day more are being found and then buried.







a view from the centre. where ever you looked there were sprawling shanty towns with obvious complete poverty everywhere.

please leave comments and tell us what you think....

harry

Day 1 - Arriving

Right... well we landed in Kigali about 2 hours ago, after a swap of planes at Nairobi. Only one person has been ill so far and numerous amounts of people have been complaining of a lack of sleep whilst myself and a few others managed about 4 hours from London.

This afternoon we are going to visit the Genocide Memorial Museum in Kigali (the capital) and then going around the city to swap our money and I will try to upload some photos, not sure if they will though.

The hotel we are staying is large, airy and everyone here has met us with a sense of enthusiasm.

We have been filmed by a cameraman coming out of the airport and he came with us to the hotel Printemps. We were told by Philbert that we would probably make tonight’s news on radio and TV which we are all excited about.
Will write more later maybe...

Welcome!

Hello Everyone!
As you know we are off to Rwanda on Sunday (19th October) and before we set off I have created an online blog site to keep you all updated whilst we are out there.
We will be posting news, photos and perhaps Short clips about our trip to Rwanda.

Not sure how often I will be able to keep you updated but aim to show and tell you as much as I can.