45. Rwanda: Genocide Memorial +

We popped over the Ugandan border to Rwanda for the day, to visit the the Kigali Genocide Museum.

The museum commemorates how, in 1994, the country was driven into a genocidal civil war by the Hutu dominated government against the more successful and prosperous Tutsi ethnic group. Nearly 1,000,000 Tutsis (of Rwanda's total population of about 8 million) lost their lives in brutal massacres not just by government troops, but by neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend. Men, women, and children were bludgeoned with clubs, hacked with machetes, and shot to death...no one was spared.

The RPF, Rwanda Patriotic Front, consisting of Tutsis and moderate Hutus, defeated the Hutu government and brought an end to the killing. Rwanda exists today (only 29 years later) under a nationalist ideology, where people do not identify by tribe, but rather as just "Rwandan".

The museum houses 250,000 victims of the genocide in a mass grave. Pix were not allowed inside the museum.

Afterwards, our group briefly toured a memorial to 10 Belgian soldiers that died fighting the genocide, then we had lunch at Hotel Des Mille Collines (hotel of a thousand hills), the real life hotel depicted in the movie "Hotel Rwanda." It is the true story of the hotel manager who saved the lives of 1250+ Tutsis ensconced in the hotel during the genocide.

Worthy of note: Kigali is immaculate. Not one piece of plastic, paper, or garbage anywhere. We haven't seen anything like this throughout the rest of Africa.Read more