“Beauty to Broken Places”

Confession: I’m a history nerd.

Yep, it’s true. Nerd to the core. And as a self-proclaimed history nerd, I have this weird obsession with remembering and commemorating everything. To me, it’s utterly important to remember our history and where we came from in order to move confidently toward our future. But while I was in Rwanda, I realized that the constant commemoration of tragic events can make it difficult to move forward, especially when these commemorations and memorial sites reflect death.

In the years immediately following the genocide, Rwandans built makeshift memorials and mass graves to bury their loved ones. However, these memorials were poorly constructed and did not serve as a life-giving place for survivors to mourn. The photo below shows the genocide memorial near Gisenyi several years ago.

Rugerero Genocide Memorial, circa 2004 (photo courtesy Barefoot Artists)

However, thanks to Lily Yeh and her project, Barefoot Artists, this memorial looks nothing like that today. In 2004, after hearing about the situation in Rwanda ten years after the genocide from Jean Bosco Rukirande, a Red Cross Regional Coordinator from Rwanda, she decided to travel to Rwanda to see how she could help. Over the past nine years, Lily has been working with the locals to revitalize their community and their memorial, honoring the genocide victims with a beautiful memorial and bringing life, color, and a renewed economy to a traumatized community. (To learn more about all the ways that Lily and Barefoot Artists has been assisting the Rugerero community, please visit their beautiful new website here.)

Rugerero Genocide Memorial, July 2012

Don’t get me wrong: it’s still absolutely heart-wrenching to visit these genocide memorials, regardless of how beautiful they may be. They still speak to the unfathomable loss that Rwandans experienced and the pain that continues to be felt as a result of the genocide. But to be witness to the remarkable transformation of a community that has been so scarred by tragedy – to see that beauty has been brought to such broken places – is truly an honor and brings such hope to my soul.