Whispers.

Ramp from main guard tower, Birkenau.

Oświeçim, Poland – A whisper. A comment.

(Withheld.)

I've long read the stories, seen the movies and imagined the terror in my mind. For once, the movies haven't exaggerated.

The pages of history books I studied in university unfold before me in full colour and in three dimensions. But here, the pages are so massive, so physically real. Five hundred acres real and scarred by seemingly endless brick foundations, left hollow.

Like I'm feeling.

Over five years, more than 1.3 million people were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, 85 per cent of whom were murdered with incomprehensible brutality. Our tour lasts longer than most victims spent here. The hollows remain as a physical black mark on history, whispering to us to remember.

Inside, a display case holds two tonnes of human hair. Two tonnes.

Pathway to the crematoria, Birkenau.

The whispers grow louder with each crunch of gravel as we move past the unloading ramp, still stitched together by miles of railroad track and barbed wire. An eerie peace is found in groves of mature trees swaying around a small pond.

It's shattered when we're told this is where ash from Crematoria IV was unceremoniously dumped – graves, rather than groves. More whispers.

We fall even further into silence as a man rocks on his heels, breaking into a heartbreaking song of prayer in Yiddish over the haunting, shattered rubble of the former Crematoria II. Blown up in 1945 by the fleeing Nazis, it's a contorted mound of jagged steel and concrete: destruction, destroyed. 

Otherwise, it's the silence that whispers of the horrors that took place here.

Right under our feet.

Day 38: Going Grey.

Goma, DR Congo – Driving through Goma at dusk, as we did last night, can be likened to being an extra in an old black-and-white film. It’s moderately surreal and volcanic ash from an eruption three years ago has tainted everything in hues of grey. Even the colourful African fabrics women wear are muted.

People paid us no mind and, despite constant reminders of the conflict that has plagued the region for more than a decade, it is obvious life goes on here. Fancy leather shoes hung from boards on the main street, men rode large, handmade wooden scooters and people continued to carry-out their tasks in the market.

Goma is very dirty, though, and fires of lit cardboard burned on the sides of the main road. The smell cuts at your nostrils. Gutters overflowed with refuse of all varieties and goats rooted through it. I temporarily lost my appetite for brochettes. Black volcanic rock has been salvaged and used for fences, but the buildings carry a sooty reminder reminiscent of parts of London, England.

Though we passed a house where each room was made from old shipping containers, Goma, much like Kigali, is witnessing a construction boom. Enormous mansions are being built right in the city, proving there's still money in the region. And presumably, some degree of safety in the city.

The UN maintains a large camp at the airport and the vast white sea of its shelters, trucks and armed vehicles contrasts dramatically with the black tarmac. Its peacekeeping force in DR Congo is the largest in the world. While I’ve become moderately accustomed to the presence of automatic weapons in Rwanda, a couple Congolese soldiers we passed carried handheld grenade launchers. Serious stuff.

I can imagine the conflict here has gone on so long that, for many, theatrics in the region simply play in the background, like white noise. I'm sure they'd still like it to come to an end.

Day 27: A Word on Language.

Kitabi, Rwanda – At any one time here, the lyrical tones of a variety of languages are carried on the breeze. With everyone talking on a mobile phone, it can be a real symphony.

Many educated Rwandans are at least bilingual and often speak three or four languages, at least passably. Persistent chatter on the street is generally in Kinyarwanda, but the government implemented a policy this past year that made English the working language. Meetings, however, often dissolve into the national tongue.

I imagine the transition will be interesting – and likely challenging – in the short term, given that the policy is not being phased in. It’s already in place. Imagine waking up one morning and suddenly finding out that all of your work had to be done in a different language – one you understood little of. All of a sudden, school curricula are in English. Signs, advertisements, newspapers, overhauled.

Though it may handicap the nation in the near future, the President believes the change will help Rwanda better position itself on the global stage in the long run. English is also central to the country’s desire to join the Commonwealth.

Kiswahili – the language of much of East and Central Africa – has now also been made mandatory in schools.

Given France’s extensive historical involvement in the country, many Rwandans also speak French (though there are areas in which you may be thought less of if you do because of disgust with the former colonial power). Rwanda was once part of ‘La Francophonie’, the association of French-speaking nations, but diplomatic relations have chilled with France because of its colonial past and its role in the genocide.

On an interesting note, Kinyarwanda is blessed with a couple idiosyncrasies that can be somewhat confusing if you’re not prepared for them. For reasons I do not understand, the ‘k’ sound is often pronounced as “ch” and an ‘l’ can be pronounced as ‘r’. As an example, Kigali (where I’m headed back to tomorrow) is often pronounced “Chigari”. To add another wrinkle, ‘b’ can be pronounced as ‘v’, leaving the oral form of Kitabi as “Chitavi”.

Confused yet?

Day 22: A Change of Pace.

Kitabi, Rwanda – Now halfway through my stay in Rwanda, I can hear the ominous ticking of the clock as time evaporates into the thin mountain air. With the realization of what we have accomplished already, and what we plan to do, my schedule has begun to fill quickly.

I have been working at the Kitabi College of Conservation and Environmental Management (KCCEM), which falls under Rwanda’s education and tourism sectors. Thus far, most of my time has been spent on the education side, editing manuals, a strategic plan and curricula – 130,000 words and counting. Over the next few weeks, however, I have been asked to devote efforts to the tourism side and will be making my way around the country to take photographs and prepare written materials.

Given my love of exploration, wildlife, writing and photography, it’s really not a bad deal.

Thus far, our plans involve visits to the country’s three national parks, including a middle-of-the-night trek far into Nyungwe to track chimpanzees and possibly golden monkeys. Deep in Parc National des Volcans, where Dianne Fossey conducted much of her research, we hope to get close to some of the last mountain gorillas remaining in the world. Giving our legs a break, we’ll finish in Akagera National Park, which is located in the only region of Rwanda that is arid savannah. It is also home to many of the animals one generally associates with Africa.

During my remaining time, I’ll also have opportunities for other personal experiences. My friend and colleague Richard and I are planning to take a bus to Kampala, Uganda, and I’ve been asked to help facilitate a session for the International Gorilla Conservation Programme in Goma, DR Congo. Right before I return to Canada, I’ll be attending a colleague’s wedding in Cyangugu.

It promises to be a busy few weeks, but a period rich in experience.

Day 17: An Evening in Kitabi.

Kitabi, Rwanda – The smoke of dinner’s cooking fires twists and curls up red hills, dancing with low-lying wisps of cloud like a woman in a loose veil. Together, they lower the blanket over the land.

Children use rough sticks to push plastic water bottles filled with sand down the hill – in the vastness of youthful imagination, everything is a toy. A group of children scampers into the hills – leaving a hand-made wooden scooter at my feet – after I surprise them by coming around the corner through the trees. 

 

Soon thereafter, they return, giggling. A large group follows behind, chattering in excitement. Once a timid girl in a colourful headscarf agrees to a high-five, a line queues behind her. The village is alive.

With no light pollution, the blackened sky curves like an iron pot and sparkles with a million pinpricks that allow the heavens to shine through.

At its Most Beautiful.

Kitabi, Rwanda – More than 2,000 metres above sea level, my head aches and my ears have popped, feeling at moments like snare drums. The sheer beauty on which my eyes have supped today, though, has brought over me a calm as ethereal as the wisps of cloud that hang languidly between the mountains. I am happy.

Put simply, Kitabi, and this region that travels through Nyungwe National Park, provides some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve seen in the world. I cannot get over how fertile and rich with vegetation this country is; it’s as though the rains that fall paint everything green, with small speckles of pink and yellow.

Throughout the drive, I sat with my head lolling out the window like a puppy that hasn’t been outside in a week (except I kept my tongue in my mouth), taking in all the smells of the fresh air and the eucalyptus.

We drove among the clouds and above them, through rain showers and bright sun. All the while, we navigated tight turns on uneven roads over rolling hills to tall peaks. I stared in wonder at the wall-to-wall trees that towered over us, unspooling vines earthward. Small birds somehow contorted to cling to the sheer rock face. It was stunning.

We saw a number of monkeys, including one sitting in a tea field just outside the park, and another with a baby. Not realizing they existed here, too, I was a little surprised to see a squirrel dash across the road in front of us. Somehow, they do not tend to be featured among the many wooden animal carvings artisans offer to help you remember your time in Africa.

We were greeted at Kitabi by a small group of village children who had crept onto the College’s property to fill their jerry cans with water from its well. I was home (away from home).

Remembering the Past.

Kigali, Rwanda – “Children, you may have been our National heroes,” the plaque reads at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Behind it, light streams through large yellow picture windows of young children who perished during the massacres. Beneath each, a name and thumbnail biographical sketch that reads something like this:

Age: 3
Description: Mummy’s boy
Favourite pastime: Playing with friends
Favourite food: Chocolate
Last memory: Watching mum die
How killed: Stabbed in the eye. Or, Hacked with a machete in mother’s arms. Or, Grenade thrown in their shower.

I really hope my children are being given a big hug right now.

Elsewhere, cases of skulls, many in pieces, lie perfectly arranged. Like many say the genocide was. In other cases, femurs. Clubs, hoes and machetes. And bloodstained Superman sheets. And rosaries. How can there be a God in the Hell these people endured? Picture after picture, testimonial after testimonial. A toddler’s sandal. The very chain and lock that was wrapped around an entire family thrown into a mass grave.

Not to mention the memorial is built on a mass grave that is the final resting place for 150,000 people. Humankind is capable of atrocities I am simply unable to comprehend.

 

Of course, it is also capable of tremendous compassion and healing.

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Day One: Kigali - "Toto, We're Not in Africa Anymore. Are We?"

Kigali, Rwanda – With the cloying humidity and a distinct pot pourri of smells that includes the sweet smoke of home fires and the choking mask of diesel exhaust, my senses took me immediately back to my last trip to Africa as I stepped out of the airport this afternoon. Driving around Kigali, however, things looked fairly different when compared to Tanzania and Kenya.

Given that this is the most densely populated country on the continent, the sheer volume of people is unavoidable. That the city – and most of the country – is built on sprawling hills has also made everyone’s plot in life stand out all the more. Tremendous infrastructure developments like good roads seem also to have attracted that many more drivers. There also appears to be less yelling and jostling. Case in point: there is an orderly system at the bank – policed by its users – whereby you take a seat at the end of the line and move down one until it’s your time to visit the wicket. I dare say that would not work in Nairobi.

The biggest shock for me, though, was the houses. Housing developments of hundreds of homes that would rival the largest in London are cropping up everywhere. It’s not just a couple select communities, either; it’s all over the city. Apparently, over the past 15 years – and even moreso over the past six – foreign investors have invested heavily in Rwanda and have begun to build monstrous homes with imposing gates, Roman columns and infinity pools. It seems so out of place, particularly given that extreme poverty is enmeshed into the very same communities. Jethro explained to me that, unlike a city like Nairobi, which has very geographically defined slums, sparse land has left the poor living side-by-side with the rich.

Entire hills are being carved out for these new developments, leaving the shanties that previously occupied the land in toothpicks. For me, it raises the question of where these marginalized people are going to live, particularly given the population density. Driving through these neighborhoods, though, you no longer feel like you’re in the Africa you’ve become somewhat accustomed to. It’s surreal, much in the way I imagine Las Vegas to be.

We’ve decided to stay in Kigali tonight at the Agasoro Motel, nestled behind a large steel fence with imposing spikes on the top. While it's very basic, it will certainly do the trick and the lunch they prepared for us – consisting of grilled fish, fresh cut fries with a sauce you could add and spiced peas – was very good.

Given the amount of traveling I’ve done over the past few days, I had also planned to have a shower to freshen up. It turns out that, by flushing the toilet, I exhausted my water supply. There must be a lesson in there somewhere. When in Africa, you have to roll with the punches, or in my case at least, roll with the pungent.