Ra's Life

Ra's Life I met a couple people at breakfast this morning, one was Cecelia - a Swedish woman on her last day in Kigali - and she was heading to the Kigali Genocide memorial. I asked to tag along...

Moved to tears, the memorial is excellent and so beautifully done. 250,000 people are reburied there. Yes, 250,000.

My birthday is April 7 which is "National Day of Mourning" for Rwanda and the UN's "'International Day of Reflection' because of the 1994 genocide.

Genocide does not just happen, it is a planned, prepared for and 'executed' event. It is overwhelming to describe what happened, please research and find out about it for yourselves. It is shocking and we all need to know what happened and increase efforts to make sure it CANNOT happen again. If you'd like a starting point see http://www.rwanda10.org/genocide/

The 'tribes' Tutsi and Hutu were created by the colonialists! Before that the distinction was economic and one changed class depending on circumstances. The colonialist made it 'racial' and the seeds for genocide were born. It is just heartbreaking walking through the children's section although the whole place is overwhelming. The 250,000 have been gathered from around Kigali - they have identified 12,000 and the searching continues... weather report: it looks like rain again but so far hasn't fallen, PU:50, hope to play tennis later today