The Gas Station

  I really don't intend to go every other day with sad, happy, sad, happy.  It just seems to be going that way.  (That was your warning that this one is sad.)

One of the first places we stopped was an old gas station.  This was a stop that no words can convey, and not even a picture's thousand words are able to tell this story.   Bear with me as I try.  This gas station was in a place called Kibimba.

This stop was on Monday (our first real day there) and we were peacefully bouncing around in the bus.  Many conversations were going on as we were getting  to know our translators and each others stories.  We heard a voice call out over all the chatter.  Although I do not know Kirundi, it clearly meant to "stop".  Our driver Fabreese (or as we called him "Febreze") quickly pulled over and sat very quietly.  There was a building beside us.  As we looked out our windows the reality that we were in a country of pain was before us.  In Burundi there are two main ethnic groups, the Tutsi and the Hutu.  On October 21, 1993, rumor was spreading that the Tutsi army had assassinated the Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye.  Hutu civilians gathered over a hundred Tutsi children and teachers into this gas station.  The Hutu said that if the rumor were true, they would kill all these people.  It was true.  I was staring out my window at the very place that a short 20 years ago a hundred children were burned alive.

What do you do with that information?  Do you sit in silence?  Do you get out and pay your respects?  I got out.  I am not sure what my plan was.  I really did not want to be there in the first place.  I was perfectly content knowing and saying the word genocide.  I was not ready to look it in the face.  It was a moment that I was glad I had a camera.  I guess that sounds odd.  Somehow though, I was able to hide behind it.  Be a spectator of the situation I found myself in instead of a participant.   It is like a horror movie that keeps playing over and over in your mind.  I was standing on the same floor.  I could almost hear the cries. I will spare all the details, maybe for your benefit, maybe for mine.

There is a memorial built beside this gas station.  On the front are the words “Plus Jamais Ca” which means "Never Again".   In the center of this memorial is a cross with the date and inscribed in French, child victims of genocide.  The parents of the victims come every October 21 and lay a memento at the place their child is buried.