World History

It’s hard, and indeed discouraged, to ignore the history in a place during your visit. There is a whole heck of a lot of history everywhere, and in the human history of somewhere, there’s a heck of a lot that’s disagreeable for the escapist vacationer. I went to Rwanda last summer, because I hadn’t been to Africa, because I didn’t want to do the luxury Safari thing, because of the effect I’d read the continent can have on you, and because there are some places that should be visited. After a few weeks in Uganda, I crossed the border into Rwanda, along the spine of volcanoes and the undulating terrain that gives the country the name land of a thousand hills, and noticed the roads change. That was the first sign of its history.

The settlements, towns, and much of the geography of Uganda and Rwanda are the same. The green slopes, the thatched homes, patchwork countryside, there was little discernable difference. Then, outside Parc au National des Volcans, the road changed. Then the homes were different. The asphalt was smooth and dark, riding along a perfect gutter curbside, tracing the green lawns of homes, sealed with stucco. There was money here, money that we had not seen in Uganda except for the President’s town. Prior to the genocide, Rwanda was a World Bank favorite. Following the genocide and refugee crisis of 1994, Rwanda has received the pecuniary attention of the rest of the international aid community.

The World Bank has given millions, and recently, foreign debts were cancelled in response to the country’s inability to pay off top-down financial assistance. Micro-finance is big in Rwanda, and I wondered whether the development of the towns we drove through appeared wealthier because the materials were more Western in appearance or whether there was more money staying in towns than in Uganda. From a little research it seems that, as a subsistence-farming country, aid may be beneficial going in, but has no reason or way of coming out.

And so it was a softer picture, our surroundings then, at twilight, in the combi van, entering this place of historical resonance. The houses and fields and clothes were colorful, the people walked beside us, mingling and gathering just before supper, the earth was terra cotta, the volcanoes were pointy, swamp greens, and there were no antiquities manufactured by the slaves, or gates displaying an ancient embarrassment in human history. There were signs, every few kilometers, with arrows to the mass graves. And there was the knowledge among us, that not so very long ago, the roads were not paved, worthy of signs as well.

Tourism certainly paid for much of the perks of that border town, where the mountain gorillas demand a hefty sum to be seen, most fortunately. The lodge where we stayed accepted American dollars, and a dance troop performed at sundown in the courtyard. We got lost on the way to a refugee camp, located a few hours outside the Park, and conjured whatever French we knew for an internet café stop. That is to say, it is almost possible to visit for other reasons. And I’m not recommending going in order to visit every memorial and spend a week miserable. There are too many. This history is not settled.

I was reading about what happened, how, when, why and between whom, to prepare myself and be educated to the history. But it is not the moment of a sigh when you hear a beautiful structure was delivered by slaves, the twisting obligation of guilt for exciting to see the Coliseum and mourning the victims, which elicit questions of what were people really like back then. It is a history that is very much alive, very gray and very true.

Rwanda is a beautiful country. The Genocide Memorial Museum is stunning, obligatory, and viscerally challenging to walk through. Kigali is not a destination to explore and neglect the memorial. The country is a memorial. Visit for that reason, and visit anyway.

Bookmark to:

We’re at the tail end of our History Week here at RealTravel, so what more appropriate destination to cover for today than Washington DC. The Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian, and the White House—all iconic and historically significant national landmarks that happen to be located in the same city. Capital Hill is one destination prime for any history buff. Check out the voice post below for a first hand account:

Bookmark to: