The Hill of Resistance

We just wanted to let you all know that we are running at least a day behind right now because our days are getting very long and there has been little time for writing. We will now try a catch you up on the last couple of days.

Two days ago we left Kigali around 7:00am to travel to a place called Bisesero, also known as the Hill of Resistance. It was a very long journey that took us through some beautiful hills and quaint little villages. Along the way we stopped at a girls school that during the genocide, when the Interahamwe arrived, ordered the girls to fall into two groups. If you were a Tutsi you were in one and Hutu's in another. These brave young girls, said no this is not right. The reward they received for their bravery was execution. All of them were brutally slaughtered and any Hutu that stood up for a Tutusi died along with them. Previous to this trip, we had watched a movie about this very incident and could not believe we had stumbled across the actual place. It had a very sobering effect on us and we knew that what lay ahead would be no better.

Once again we found ourselves on roads that goats would have found difficult to traverse and slowly we made our way higher into the mountains. We drove for a short while along Lake Kivu which is absolutely beautiful -- my pictures cannot do it justice. As we traveled, it seemed no matter where we were the minute we got out of the car with a camera, children just magically appear! When we were only 4km from the memorial, we could not wait to get there as we had been in the car for 5 hours at this point. We did not know it would take another hour to travel the 4 kilometers! Upon our arrival we had to use the washrooms really badly and all that was available was an old outhouse surrounded by men. This wasn't any ordinary outhouse though, this was a "special" one. All that it was, was a hole cut in the floor, made more for the convience of a man than a woman. It took allot of talent to get in position and so for this we thought the "shorter" one should try first. So guess who was the guinea pig? You pretty much had to take a very big breath, step into the abyss, and make things happen fast, and get out! When the next candidate was ready, her caring buddy stood outside the outhouse and held the door for her, all the while running commentary about all the spiders and other bugs that were crawling along the floor. "Look up, look at all of them, look at them crawling on the floor!" Little did she know that the one in the outhouse has major arachnophobia and nearly passed out from fear!

A few feet away from the outhouse you begin the journey of the "Hill of Resistance" where again over 50,000 Tutsi's were slaughtered. What makes this story different though is that they were mostly farmers who decided to arm themselves and fight! The hill had a perfect vantage point to see the enemy approaching and the hill also came equipped with it's own natural supply of weapons for them to use....stones. Along with some of their own farm tools, they were able to fight the Interhamwe and chase them off. These tough farmers were able to hold off the Interhamwe for a 2 month period, but it finally ended in horror when the Interhamwe returned with the support of the military. Today the new memorial that has been built has 3 separate building, with each building being separated into 3 identical rooms. These represent the lives that were taken in the 9 districts of Bisesero. The bones of the deceased will be placed in these rooms in the near future. Further off from these 3 buildings is another memorial where the bodies of the men that died fighting, lie. This memorial is for the heroes of Bisesero. The aftermath of this horrible massacre was that there were approximately 1000 survivors but only men and young boys. Every woman in the surrounding villages were killed except for one, and in November of '94 the Interhamwe came back and poisoned her. It was a long journey home that afternoon but one that we are glad we went on.

Our solemn moods were suddenly replaced with shock and a little bit of fear when the Police stopped us. Enoch was talking to them while they were looking in the backseat of the car where the vertically challenged one was sitting. We thought they wanted to search the backpack, but when they hopped into the car and Enock sped off much faster than he normally drives -- we were left wondering what was going on. They were quite friendly and introductions were made and shortly after we stopped and they thanked us and said goodbye! As it turned out they had commandeered our vehicle to a criminal.


On Saturday we took a drive east of the country to a beautiful lake called Muhazi. We cannot really tell you the path we were on because the Rwandan map for some reason or other is very messed up and the route we took is not the one we were on. Regardless we made it there and enjoyed the scenery for a bit until it really clouded over and the thunder and lightening moved in. Experiencing thunder in Africa is like nothing we have ever experienced before. It feels like the whole sky is going to fall in on you and vibrates you to the very core. Unfortunately it rained on our parade and we ended up not staying very long and headed back to the hotel. This was the first bad weather that we have had since being here.

Today (Sunday) has been overcast all day as well and because of that we have not felt to adventuresome. We did manage to go to "Hotel Milles Collines" this afternoon and all we can say is that it was very disappointing to see. The hotel is under construction as they are "renovating" they have been since 2006. Nothing at all reminds us of the movie, but the most disappointing was the horrific prices and the rather rude service that we received. The best part of the day was when "someone" bought a Rwandan newspaper from outside the gates of the Hotel Milles Collines and negotiated all by herself the price of the paper. They proudly came back to tell me what a great deal they got on it. I pointed at the paper, showed her the price that was printed on it, and we won't comment on that anymore!!! We have had to move rooms again because we are now becoming the "World Vision" group. There was a development over the past few days that is going to make the beginning of this new adventure interesting. Kenya Air decided to go on strike and almost all of the volunteers as of Sunday night are stranded in Nairobi. Apparently though the strike is now over but the airport is a mess and no one seems to know how or when they will be arriving in Kigali. The group that is in Kigali at the moment consists of only Joanna, and of course us!