[Rwanda]

When the genocide begun, many Rwandans fled to the safest place they knew: the church. Unfortunately, those made the rebels have an easier job by burning the entire church with people in it. Some of the priests and pastors, who were secretly rebels, turned on their own congregation even after many years. Once the church doors were locked, the pastor would shoot all of the people or set the church on fire himself. Nymata church in Nymata is the result of a rebel ganging.

The people of Nymata fled to their church to find peace and a safe place for their children, only to be murdered in cold blood.

It only seems fitting that on my way to the town of Nymata that it is pouring rain. Many nights were filled with tears and many days were filled with mourning during and after the genocide. To this day, Rwandan people have not found all two million bodies – they are still finding them to this day, as they are building and expanding Kigali. Mass graves are constantly being reopened to add more bodies, even after all these years.

On the outside, Nymata looks like a church, but as you walk closer in the muddy sand you will see that there is something different about it …something chilling, disturbing, and cold. This memorial still has the screams of children, the crying of babies and the agonizing yells of men and woman in a place they should be safe in.

As you walk in, you are instantly caught off guard. Rows upon rows upon rows of blood-stained clothing fill the entire church. Shoes…rosaries….machetes…everywhere. 45,000 pairs of clothing, 45,000 people shot down, raped, beaten, and suffocated, in ONE DAY.

One side of the church has an especially large amount of crosses. That curved wall with wooden crosses is a memorial to children. Many of the children, especially the babies, were hung upside down and thrown against the brick wall till they stopped crying, died. As you look up, you can still see the holes where showers of bullets went through and blood splatters that reach the ceiling.

Most of all: the alter. The beautiful white cloth that once covered the altar is now covered in blood stains from the Rwandans. Machetes still lay on the alter today, never been moved from years before. Rosaries covering the stained cloth.

When they decided to make the church a memorial, they built an underground room. This special room is to clean the bodies and coffins that are brought to the church to be prepared for the mass graves that lay outside the church. I stood there and watch two men clean wooden coffin that had a young woman inside. This woman, before she was shot to death, was beaten and tortured sexually by at least twenty men. Before she was shot, the men laughed as they took turns on her.

Where do you put over two million bodies? It is one thing to see a grave, it is another to walk into a mass grave…down the stairs and see thousands upon thousands of coffins, many of the coffins having ten bodies in them to save space. Those whose bodies were actually identified have their names on the side. If not, you are given a number.

I am not being descriptive; I am just re-telling exactly what happened.

No words, or pictures, or anything can equate to what I saw today. To feel the pain and sorrow I feel, and the sickness of how the rebels tortured innocent people will never leave me. I will never be the same again.