The Memorial for the Belgian soldiers
On our way back to the hotel we saw a small building riddled with bullets and fragment marks. It turned out to be the scene of the Belgian soldier’s deaths at the start of the genocide. A woman named Marie Josee took us around to the different rooms and told us in Kinyrwandan (translated for us by Richard) the story of the brave Belgian peacekeepers who tried to protect the prime minister after the president was killed at the start of the genocide. The prime minister was murdered along with her husband. The soldiers were taken to their barracks where they were tortured and killed. Now the barracks (video - This is where the Belgian para's got killed in 1994!) are kept nearly as they were after the soldiers were killed. Bullet holes, grenade fragment marks, grenade craters in the floor, blood stains on the concrete. Marie Josee was wonderful. She was pretty collected throughout the t
elling. She had never met Richard and they talked a lot. Just the two of them.Before we left she told us her story. Confusion about her father, whether he was Hutu or Tutsi, thinking she knew who her father was then sort of being betrayed by her mother. Her Hutu husband leaving her with two small children because her father may have been Tutsi. She tried to put on a brave face but she was terribly sad. She burst out crying. All of us got emotional.
When we sat on the wall outside waiting for the others who were comforting Marie Josee, Richard sat with Brandon and me. Again, very emotional. It’s why he has to eventually leave Rwanda. Too many stories with tragedy leading to more tragedy. He told us a few stories
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