Genocide memorials in Rwanda are not only resting places for the victims, they are also homes to survivors;

Let me tell you a story:

#Thread

#Kwibuka27 https://twitter.com/DimitrieSissi/status/1384172506207055874

When these genocide memorials were being constructed in different parts of the country, survivors would come and spend the day there. Cutting the grass, sweeping the floor, or just sitting, at times crying in silence.

They would come everyday, do some chores with no salary..

They wouldn’t eat or drink, just stay there at the memorial, humming in silence, talking to themselves - or to their loved ones all day.

And in the evening when the memorials closed, they would refuse to leave.

So Memorials’ staff would ask them to ‘Go home’..

‘Home’ they responded in disbelief. ‘Where is home’?
- my wife is buried here
- my children are buried here
- my relatives and friends are here

This is home!

Where do you want me to return to? Where do you call my home? You mean on the hills with those who killed them?

‘I should be buried here with them’, survivors would insist, ‘this is where I belong.’

Some went on the hills but were back early in the morning.

It was unsure whether those survivors would be able to ever move on with life.

They had lost interest in life, they wanted to die.

They felt guilty for surviving, they missed their loved ones. Memorials were where their loved ones were resting, so they felt memorials are where they belonged.

That’s when @Ibuka_Rwanda decided to employ them at the memorials. They were grateful! They loved the job.

@EricKabera interviews them and captures their story in an award winning documentary called: ‘Keepers of the Memory’.

But Eric interviews those with the most poignant cases. It seems, memorials are home to all us..

We find solace there, next to our loved ones.

Some of the keepers of the memory are old now.. some are dead, it’s life.

Some managed to remarry and start new families, others were too broken, or had lost faith in that.

I am not sure when they die if they are buried there too, but I wish they could.

Memorials also give strength. Whenever you visit one, you come out more committed, more empowered.

Memorials are there, in our neighborhoods, children go there to play.. elders go there to pray

Artists, intellectuals, politicians, philosophers, authors all meet there..

Memorials are second homes to Rwandans, they keep us in constant state of commemoration.

Many of us do not go to church, but we feel the presence of our ancestors whenever we visit memorials of victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi..

#Kwibuka27