"Ne Marcher Pas Sur la Tombes, S'il Vous Plait"

Been doing a lot of processing this past 16 hours or so. I feel like I adequately prepared for the visit to the Gisozi Genocide Memorial, but soon learned that if you're a thinking, feeling human being, there's really no way to be fully braced for it.

Perfect example--outside the actual museum, there are serene, beautifully landscaped gardens and fountains, and I found the quiet and tranquility quite appropriate for psyching yourself into the actual tour. Along the various pathways, there were large cement platforms, sort of like what you'd expect to see in a parking lot or at a building site. I assumed they were stages for events or performances.

Then I got a bit closer and saw one of the small brown signs with white lettering. For once, my high school French kicked in immediately. The sign read, "Ne Marcher Pas Sur la Tombes, S'il Vous plait."

"Do Not Walk on the Mass Graves, Please."

Then I really looked around the tranquil gardens. There were about a dozen or so of those cement platforms.

That's when I learned that on the actual grounds of the memorial, approximately 280,000 of the 1 million Rwandan genocide victims are buried in mass graves. Those plain cement slabs are their grave markers.

And that's before you even enter the museum. Wait'll I'm ready to tell you how the tour ends.

Basically, I've needed some time to stop feeling mute with horror. I had just about reached that point this afternoon, when the one of the U.S. Embassy Communications staffers named Charles told me that his entire family had been killed in the genocide.

We were driving along one of Kigali's eerily quiet, clean, orderly streets when he mentioned this. I wasn't going to say anything anyway, but then he added that about 3 weeks ago, the remains of his mother and some other relatives had been unearthed and identified. A brief ceremony was held

Silence ensued.

Eventually, we found something else to talk about. And pretty soon, I'll be able to share some of my other insights about Kigali. After all, life goes on.