In The Church

The woman who walked us through the church, Serafina, was calm but reserved. She was very beautiful. Elegant. Poised. She spoke quietly and reverently about what happened in this church. She did not tell us her story. No one asked. Richard translated for us. “In this closet people tried to hide. They locked themselves in but the door was shot to pieces. The door is still there… In this area they killed the little babies by hitting them against the wall… In this area behind the altar the blood stains are this deep…”

We walked into the basement of the church. It is a memorial. There were cases of bones and skulls. Rows and columns. Many skulls showed the cause of death. There was a wooden club, a metal arrowhead, a machete.

Upstairs on the altar was a glass container of rosary beads. One way they could identify those killed was by the rosaries found in their pockets. Many rosaries in a pile. The stained glass windows were broken but enough glass was left to be simple and beautiful. Simple, beautiful, fragile and colorful and broken – Just like the people of Rwanda. The white cloth was left on the altar. It was of course spattered, covered really, in blood. Behind the church were spaces where thousands of the dead have been interred. Simple wooden caskets.

In the underground area behind the church there were still many bodies. Just the way they were found. I didn’t go down there. Cindy and I stayed in the outside air and the sunshine. There were birds singing. The wonderful-rich-musical-innocent-sound of children playing in the schoolyard just on the other side of a concrete block wall. Children born after the genocide. Ants still crawled on the ground. Overhead paper wasps built their nests. Children called out joyfully only 10 meters away. Downstairs and in the church unspeakable reminders of the evil men can do. Over the wall uniformed children with shiny brown faces and brilliant smiles played schoolyard games. And the birds sang. Bullet marks, skulls in rows, rosaries, caskets, clothes, craters, blood stains. Music in children’s voices.

God please help me to use what I have learned and experienced here to lead a better life every single day. Every Single Day.

Cindy cried and gasped for air. It was almost too much to even imagine. As the people prayed their rosaries and begged God to save them… How does Rwanda remain so spiritual? How do they go on living with these memories? Many of the 5,000 would not have been killed if they hadn’t gone to the church for protection. And yet Calliste bows his head and folds his hands in unashamed prayer before he eats. I have eaten with him many times. He always prays before he eats. Quietly. Publicly. Calliste. He sat on one of the benches of the church crying. Quietly. Publicly.