BRATTLEBORO — Two hours into my bus ride to Butare, I began to get nervous.
Staring out the bus windows, I hadn't yet seen a sign for Butare, and I was anxious not to miss my stop. I finally found the courage to turn to the young man sitting next to me and sheepishly inquire, “Parlez-vous anglais?”
After he gave me a smile and a nod, I asked him why I hadn't seen any signs for Butare and if I had already missed it.
“Butare is Huye, Huye is Butare. A few years after the genocide, they renamed it,” he said.
This interaction demonstrated one of the many ways Rwanda is rebuilding itself. The names of streets, buildings, cities, and entire provinces have been slowly changing over 20 years in an attempt to shed the negative connotations associated with the past.
The second language taught in schools has been changed from French, the language of colonial Africa, to English, the language of international business in East and South Africa.
The government has even outlawed speaking openly about the Hutu and Tutsi ethnicities (something that has brought the nation a lot of negative international attention). The creation of a new unified culture can be seen in the clean, new streets; in the two new skyscrapers in downtown Kigali; and in the increased quality of life for the average Rwandan.
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But after the atrocities of those 100 days in 1994, when nearly one million Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed by their neighbors, Rwanda still bears horrific scars that lie beneath the rebuilt nation.
Huye - home to the National University of Rwanda and the National Museum of Rwanda - is considered the intellectual capital of the country. The streets were filled with students, walking to and from class, talking and joking with their peers. At the main intersection in town, a sign points to “Murambi Memorial.”
I was the only Mzungu, or white person, in sight, and a motorcycle taxi weaved through students to pick me up. I pointed to the sign, negotiated a price, and rode for 40 minutes on the back, through hills and over dirt roads, past tea plantations and waving children.
The Murambi Genocide Memorial sits atop a hill where, during the genocide, Tutsis were told to seek asylum with the French peacekeeping forces. Some 65,000 Tutsis listened to the advice and converged on the hill. In the night, the French “peacekeeping” soldiers abandoned the refugees and left them to die.
The mass graves were later excavated, the bodies mummified, the memorial building erected, and the corpses arranged in a series of rooms. It was graphic, gut wrenching, and soul moving.
The guide had lived through the genocide and was willing to dedicate his life to ensuring that the past isn't forgotten, that the truth is known.
The motorcycle ride back to Huye was somber, to say the least.
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The juxtaposition of returning from the mass graves to the bustling, energetic streets surrounding the university was both startling and inspiring. The atrocities of the genocide are so close to these students, psychologically and geographically, and yet they continue to forge the path for a new nation.
This trip to the city in the southern province of Rwanda was a weekend vacation from my work as a consultant. Over the four months I lived in Kigali, I interacted with a number of incredible organizations dedicated to healing the physical, psychological, cultural, and economic wounds of the genocide.
Never Again Rwanda led communities in conversations and workshops about peace building, economic empowerment, and civic engagement. The Rwanda Youth Healing Center aids in healing genocide-affected youth and other vulnerable children. Kigali Hope Association educates and empowers youth in the fight against HIV. The list goes on.
This dichotomy of past and future is everywhere. It's in the man sitting next to me on the bus who speaks English and French and in the guide at the Murambi memorial. It's the local NGO's getting wireless Internet to be able to access potential sources of grant money needed to provide nutritional support to children orphaned by the genocide. It's in the economy, which grew almost 8 percent in 2013 with 46 percent of the population still living below the poverty line.
It's in wanting justice, but granting forgiveness.
It's in the everyday struggle of trying to build a bright future from a dark, horrible past.
The progress of the Rwandan people in just 20 years is inspiring and hopeful. While they will never erase the genocide, I believe they are well on their way to overcoming it and ensuring it never happens again.