April 7th is a holiday and commemoration events take place all over the country to unit people on reconciliation and prosperity. In my continuous effort to integrate with the community and support their efforts towards progress, I checked with my counterpart on the schedule of events for this week. On the first day we were going to either join the district officials on a special ceremony along the river (where many bodies were dumped) or participate in the event at the sector level. My counterpart asked me to show up at the soccer field in my town around 9 AM.
I got up early in the morning, turned on the radio and quickly realized the theme of the somber music related to the genocide. The street outside was very quite and almost deserted except for very few people. As I reached the stadium, it was 9:12 at this point; there was nothing to indicate a planned event except for 7 chairs, 6 long benches, a coffee table, and 5 people standing in the middle of the field.
I immediately called my counterpart and asked him if he was sure about an event taking place here (I really wanted to observe this day and stand in solidarity with the local population). He assured me and told me that he was leaving the house right now along with the sector officials.By 10:00 am there were more and more signs. At this point a few people responded to the executive secretary’s assistance who went walking around town with a blow horn calling on people to come to the soccer field. People sat on the grass hill (make shift stands) as VIPs occupied the set of chairs and benches!! By 10:30 the grass hills were filled with men, women, and children descending from all directions.
The ceremony started with a signal from the sector official for people to stand up for the national anthem. A guy stepped up to the blow horn and everybody removed their hats, village women removed their head covers!! All sang the national anthem and took their seats. Next, the muszungu Padre (Father) from the Catholic Church led a prayer in Kinyarwanda (impressive) followed by a short speech from the Adventist priest. In between, the assistant secretary gave charged speeches. Next, the executive sector secretary gave her ijambo (speech) and highlighted the weeklong events encouraging people to attend. The next 45 minutes were very interesting with a survivor who came up and spoke about her experience surviving the genocide.
The floor was then open to people from the audience to come up and talk about what they witnessed 16 years ago (the north continued to be a hot spot and experienced many horrors compared to the rest of the country). Some were génocidaires, which I though was amazing to see them stand before this growing crowd and speak!!At noon, Radios were turned on and held against the blow horn. We were all to listen to the President speak from a big event at Amahoro stadium in Kigali. The president’s speech was very interesting. He delivered it in both English and Kinyarwanda. His speech focused on three main points. First, was the importance of fighting “bad politics” from within, as well as from the international community. Bad politics I understood is politics of division, politics that criticize the current regime on issues of freedom of speech and political freedom!! Good politics is politics promoting peace, unity, and prosperity. Rwandans do have more to worry about in terms of getting themselves out of poverty and into progress!!
The remaining of the week, businesses are allowed to open till noon only and then everything closes in the afternoon to attend events and functions for conciliation and remembrance. Otherwise, this week and the next 100 days it will be interesting to observe the subtle changes in mood and behavior of a nation in morning!!
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