Hutus Narrative

I tried so hard to prepare myself for the memorial but it still impacted me in a tremendous way. When you walk up to the burnt orange brick church there is a heavy duty black, Iron Gate with two sides that are made of iron rods. On the right side there is a massive hole and the lock is missing. The guide exclaimed that the Tutis were hiding in the church with an Italian woman, the woman had been trying to reason with the Hutus but they would not give in, so the Hutus attacked first killing the men and boys with machetes and guns that surrounded the church. They used grenades to blow the gate into the church open. He then walked us inside, where there were at least 100 church pews 20 feet long, some longer. The pews were filled with piles of

I stopped dead in my tracks when I reached the last pew on the right side, on top of the pile was a tiny onesie. Failing to fight back the tears we walked to the front, by the altar, the guide began to state that when the Hutus began to invade the church the women and children were fearful so they ran to the altar, they thought that if they were at the altar the Lord would protect them. On top of what used to be white cloth were small personal items, watches, necklaces, coin pouches, and other things they had collected off of the corpses. As I walked behind the altar, looking up and down the back wall, there were small holes all over. The guide exclaimed that they were bullet holes, and the larger ones were from grenades and that there were more on the roof but they had to repair it. After looking around for a few minutes, he brought us to an underground room in the center of the room. They had built it for the people who were killed inside the church, and another for the one outside of the church. It was a small room with white tiles lining the stairs, Floors, and

Not even the grown men could hold back the tears. The guide then took us outside to a few graves, where they had buried the Italian woman along with some others. As I stood there blurring out what he was saying I thought of everything I had just heard, and could barely breathe. My youth pastor came beside me and hugged me, saying nothing knowing that that was what I needed. He then walked us around to the back of the church to another underground tomb, as we walked towed the opening one of the pastors said we did not have to go down. I walked down the white tile stairs and to the left, a long corridor with coffins filled 10 high floor to ceiling. We walked up and down the rows and every few there would be a smaller one, one for a young child. My heart sank to my stomach at the sight, I continued out sobbing uncontrollably and went and set with my friend Karissa. We then thanked our tour guide and headed back to the school. As we walked to the bus children began to get out of school, they were laughing and giggling they were all so full of joy even though something so tragic had just