2nd Trip to Gikongoro

Last week, I went south again to meet with the Loan Officers at the Gikongoro branch for a brief meeting. We were implementing some new processes and going over some questions they had, but that only took about an hour. The rest of the time, I took advantage of my translator/co-worker/Micro counter-part Gilbert who went to National University of Rwandain this part of the country. He showed me around the National Museum (pretty small, no pictures allowed) and the Royal Palace (the dwelling place of the monarchs until the 1950s. They charged to take pictures, so no pictures). We also visited Gilbert's old campus:

which was very beautiful, and also had MONKEYS:
which were exciting to see. Fortunately , they completely ignored us, so I have no stories of poop-flinging or attack. The photo at the top was taken on the NUR campus, near where the monkey troop (herd? school?) lived.

We also visited the Murambi Genocide Memorial near Butare, which is one of the largest and most famous of the memorials in Rwanda. It is built on the campus of what was originally a technical school. During the genocide, about 50,000 Tutsis fled there, and their Hutu attackers cut off the water supply to the compound and killed them all a few days later. They buried the bodies in several mass graves, which were later exhumed (in 1995). They found that a lot of the bodies had been deprived of oxygen in the grave and hadn't decomposed, so they preserved over 800 of these bodies and keep them in rooms for visitors to view. It's shocking, and sobering, especially when entering the rooms that contain the remains of children who were slaughtered. They keep these bodies uncovered so that no one in future years can deny that the genocide occured.

There are also plaques around that mark where mass graves were found, and where the French flag flew during 'Operation Turquoise,' where French soldiers moved in towards the last days of the genocide to protect Hutu genocidaires from the avenging RPF. Rwandans are still waiting for an official apology from the French- for this, and for supplying the Hutu militias with arms in hopes of supporting the existing power structure, and defending the Hutu refugees as they continued to attack from the DRC. The decision to switch from French to English has deep-rooted social/political causes behind the peripheral business causes.

P.S.- We also visited a craft co-op in Butare where I got some sweet souvenirs and gifts. If anybody wants anything specific, let me know and I can get it for you (wood carvings? baskets? jewelry? knives? toys?) when I go back down in a couple weeks.