Goodbye's are hard

27/06/2012

On the last blog post we wrote about the Mother’s Union bringing some of their handiwork to show us, in order that we may buy it. When we wrote the blog, this had not yet happened. When the representatives of the Mother’s Union arrived, Venant, a Pastor who is involved in Diocese administration gave a speech about the value of our time in Shyogwe and asked that we would come back as soon as possible. We then each shared our feelings of our time with them, which was emotional for all present. Claudine, the head of the Mother’s Union in Shyogwe, along with Janet, presented each of us with individual gift bags containing the craft that the widows and orphans had made. The female members of the team were given jewellery and purses, and the men received small drums. Pete Nadin got a carved wooden zebra – they must have known how much he loves animals! We were truly overwhelmed by their generosity.

The next morning the goodbyes continued as we left Alphonsine (the chef) and Ilva (the German girl living there for a year) to head towards Kigali and then Byumba. We made a short stop at the Pineapple Juice Factory and the Mother’s Union where we bought gifts for ourselves and loved ones at home. 

After about an hour’s journey, and stopping to ask for directions, we arrived to meet Archbishop Rwaje in Kigali. Pete Nadin filmed as Andy interviewed him about the Church in Rwanda and the Support a Pastor program (hopefully the video will be ok despite 8 army helicopters flying over whilst the cameras were rolling!). The rest of the team had a little time to relax, getting to know Pastor Robert from Byumba who had come to meet us there, along with our new driver named Innocent. The lovely thing about this was that Venant and Claudine had travelled the whole way with us and our driver Celestine so that they could hand over the responsibility of us to the Byumba diocese. They show how much they care by sitting in a hot bus with us rather than just setting us off on our way and getting on with their day.  We said a final goodbye to those from Shyogwe as we headed to the Genocide Memorial Museum.

Most of the team had visited the Memorial before, but it still affected each one of us. Some went round all the exhibits whilst others sat in the gardens. Robert and Innocent also viewed the entire memorial, and we did not realise until afterwards that it was the first time Innocent had been. We felt so ashamed that we had been asking Innocent about small things like the bags being left in the car when for him it was such an emotional visit. We later found out that he had lost three brothers in the genocide and that his family do not talk about it. He does not speak much English, but when we asked him if visiting the memorial was bad or good, he answered ‘bad’.

The team were involved in other eye-opening conversations around the memorial. Andy spoke to some schoolboys who, at the age of about 15, were learning about the genocide for the first time. It became apparent that they were not told details by their parents because they were too young before, but were now at an appropriate age to learn about their country’s past. Andy asked how they felt after learning, and one boy said that he felt fear; not that it might happen again, but the very real fear that people must have felt when it was happening. 

Stephanie also had a conversation with a boy that was 20 years old, and was also visiting the memorial for the first time. He would have been two at the time of the genocide and his entire family was wiped out except for his two brothers. He told Stephanie that a picture of his father was in the memorial but he could not find one of his mother; we do not know if he has photos of them or knows what they look like as he was so young when they died. He is at boarding school, along with his two brothers, and would have to go through the experience of the memorial and then simply go back to his school with maybe no one to talk to about how he feels. He asked Stephanie questions about suffering and God, and simply asked ‘how can I have any hope’?

All of these stories, as well as those in the Memorial themselves, greatly affected the team and made us realise that whilst Rwanda is progressing rapidly, there is still so much hurt, so much hopelessness and so much pain in so many of the people. 

After this, we then were driven to Byumba in the heat of the day, seeing the beautiful views that area available everywhere you look in Rwanda. We arrived in Byumba where we were greeted by Chantal, Robert’s wife, and shown where we were staying for the rest of our time here. Instead of being in the conference centre as we have been before, we are across the road in our own private villa (ish)! We will still eat our meals over in the complex and did so for our tea. We met Bishop Emmanuel and then headed back for some prayer and discussion as a team before bed.