Thursday 7th

Today marks the start of a week of mourning to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the genocide. I cancelled all my lessons for the day to give my students more time with their families.

This evening we went to the stadium with David along with thousands of other Rwandans to mourn the nations horrific loss. The first few hours were strangely light hearted, with fairly upbeat songs and most people holding themselves together. The other interns and I mused that none of us had really experienced loss before, and we were unable to understand what the people around us were going through. I finally plucked up courage to ask David his experience. His father was a doctor. He was killed just outside the parliament buildings trying to bring in an injured person for treatment. David was six years old at the time.

At 9pm we lit candles to remember the lost. By this stage many individuals had broken down into sobbing wretches and were carried out by aides.

By 9.30 many of the aides themselves had lost it.

We left at 10.30 as they were showing a film documenting the awful events of 94.
Not long after we left the film was cut short because most of the people in the stadium were at that point weeping and wailing uncontrollably.

It was precious to be part of this but I felt understandably disconnected from the mourners around me. I was a spectator at one of life's greatest miseries. I had no words of comfort or empathy. All i could do was take photos and hope that it would never happen again.

(Photos by Karyn Makins)