Genocide Memorial I wanted to visit the Genocide Memorial. The 1994 Rwandan genocide was imprinted in my head during my childhood. I remember the blood flowing rivers from TV and the hundred thousands of people on the run fleeing into other countries. On the contrary, my mom didn’t know this tragedy. The night before Nausicaa’s mom had told her, her own genocide story.  She couldn’t believe that this country was once a place of genocide. We enter the Genocide Memorial museum which has free entrance but counts on free donations. The money goes to survivors and the museum. We learn about the German and then Belgian colonalisation. The evils created by the anthropologist missionaries from the Catholic Church. In detail we learn how many years before the genocide, the basis for extreme hatred was spread. All Tutsis should be killed. The ten commandants for Hutus said that if they had a Tutsi wife or child. He should kill them and vice versa. Your Tutsi neighbors are not your neighbors, they are cockroaches to be killed. During Belgian colonization, Hutus and Tutsis were defined. The issue of race was created. According to their definition, the Hutus were Indigenous and the Tutsis were from Ethiopia. The intruder should be killed and their dead bodies thrown into the major river so they could flow back to where they came from. You have to know that before the Belgian colonization Hutus and Tutsis lived in peace and married among each other. It was more of a social status nothing to do with race. In Rwanda, you have clans and Hutus & Tutsis can be found in 1 clan but now they had to kill each other. I saw the pictures of church, slaughtering and stadium slaughtering. I saw the skulls and bones from the victims. The skulls were broken. You could see some were smashed. No Tutsi was safe. Some tried to flee to the islands in Lake Kivu but yet Hutu killers came to find them. They were motivated to complete the ethnic cleansing of their own kind I must add. I was told that no one really talks about genocide or their personal story. This is not true. Most Rwandan people I have met in the hotel, have all openly told me their genocide story. Some even showed me the scars, awful souvenirs on their body. Every genocide survivor had a traumatic experience and yet no psychological counseling. Although, through talking and the many peace and reconciliation programs, Rwanda healed. The gacacha courts, local village courts who are supposed to punish those involved in the killings. The federal courts punished those who were part of the genocide masterplan. Believe me, they were many. Killers and survivors now live together as Rwandans. Those who took revenge on the killers after genocide were imprisoned and severely punished. The revengers were no different. This vicious cycle had to stop. If not, Rwanda would become like Sudan or Somolia. Inside the museum, my mom started having horrible flashbacks to her childhood. The Biafra War from the seventies in Nigeria mainly Port Harcourt, where she is from. During Biafra war all Igbo’s should be killed. My mom is an Igbo and so is my late grandmother. They were all supposed to be killed. My mom was forced to change her name to her grandfathers and hide throughout the war. Her family was wanted, just as those Rwandan families. I never knew this story. Genocides are real. In the museum, you can see pictures of Armenian Genocide, Cambodia Genocide, Nazism, Balkan crises and other genocides I wasn’t aware of. Sickening. What a sick world people have created. All on the basis of race. This reminds me how in Belgium, they have created a definition for someone of foreign origin - one of the parents of foreign origin or someone born in a different country. The word is allochtoon and taken up in a dictionary and databases were created. I remember when I received the letter, I objected to be included in the database. My Belgian grandfather was born in the Netherlands, Amersfoort as his parents were military refugees from Belgium during the First World War. At 90 he had also received the same letter. All of sudden this Belgian'man was allochtoon. I had explained him the definition and he also realised that this was not good. Society dividing people, labelling people, creating racial divides can not be good. It is a basis for hatred, possible genocide and civil war. The hatred for foreigners within Europe is growing and I hope it will never come to this point. Nigeria is another place where another genocide could take place. The current government is Muslim and the oil is in Igbo hands. Boko Haram is already doing a good job of de-stabilising the country. The genocide in Rwanda, makes my mom realise that another Biafra could come her way. All my thoughts are with the families of Rwanda and Nausicaa whom lost a lot of family members during the genocide but also all other genocide survivors out there. Rwanda will succeed as they have security and peace first. Someone in my hotel now visits the killer of his parents in an effort to reconcile. He didn’t want revenge, he wanted peace. Through gachacha he came to understand the killer’s motivation and how he got to that point. The man I am speaking of was a mix of Belgium, Congolese and Rwandan. His mother was a Tutsi and therefore he should be killed. They killed his mom but let him and his dad live because his dad claimed to be half French half Congolese instead of Belgium. The French government supported the Hutu government and so they could live. If the father had said he was Half Belgian, he would have been killed and also thrown in the latrine pit. Now they all live in peace as Rwandans. They now aim for a united Africa. Rwanda is a beautiful country with an amazing story of peace, development and reconciliation.