Day Trip to Butare

Last weekend, we went on a day trip to Butare, Rwanda’s second-largest city, which lies 45 minutes south of Nyanza.. Home to Rwanda’s first secondary school, which opened in 1928, and the National University of Rwanda, established in 1963, Butare is often considered the country’s intellectual center. It also hosts a few very mzungu-friendly restaurants and a supermarket that sells peanut butter, cheese, Nutella, many varieties of Cadbury chocolate bars, and bread selections such as “brown,” “healthy,” “special brown,” and “sliced.” It’s basically heaven!

While in Butare, we visited the National Museum of Rwanda, which opened in 1988 and was a gift from Belgium. The museum houses exhibits on Rwanda’s geology, history, handicrafts, sports, customs, and cuisine. Most interesting was the detailed instructions on how to brew banana beer!

Following the museum, we visited the Murambi Genocide Memorial. It was difficult and overwhelming, to say the least. Here’s the excerpt on it from the Bradt travel guide to Rwanda:

“The genocide memorial at Murambi is one of Rwanda’s starkest: over 1,800 bodies, of the 27,000-odd exhumed from mass graves here, have been placed on display to the public in the old technical school. They people the bare rooms, mingling horror with poignancy, as a mute but chillingly eloquent reminder that such events must never, ever, be allowed to recur. During the genocide, under orders from the prefect and with the support of the church authorities, between 40,000 and 60,000 inhabitants were assembled together in and around the school on Murambi hill, supposedly for protection; there were 64 rooms crammed full with people. Then the interahamwe attacked, throwing grenades through the windows. Within four days, most of those on the premises had been slaughtered. Later, French soldiers were installed on the site as part of Opération Turquoise, and a volleyball pitch was built over one of the mass graves.”

Inside one of the rooms:

Villages dot the hillsides surrounding the memorial, and locals greeted us enthusiastically as we passed through. While waving back at them, I couldn’t help but wonder if their family members had been killed at Murambi and how difficult it must be for them to live their lives with such a harrowing memory visible everyday.