Photos: Ola Kwiatkowska - www.elenaiarts.org
In 1994 a technical school was built on this site, as large as three soccer fields.
Tutsis from the area who had sought refuge in churches were asked to gather there. After a gruelling 2 weeks, all of the 50,000 men, women, children and babies were killed. Only 10 survived.
One of them is Juliette and her daughter, who was born there. She testifies how she lost her husband and two boys in the massacre.
Her testimony is so heart-rending that I need to leave the group. I want to listen, but I can’t take much more of this. The buildings, fields of grass, hills, wind, "everything" around me testifies, there’s no escape.
I want to get out! I want to push aside the image of Juliette as a young mother of three.
"This is the place."
I sit down, somewhere. I close my eyes and seize the rhythm of my breathing. I try to listen to the voices from a village a bit farther down, there is a cow and the occasional caress of the wind.
The group moves along. I leave the thought of rejoining them for what it is and breathe. I take "my" time. No matter how hard I try, the images from Juliette's story do not disappear, nor do the buildings around me and the fact that I’m sitting there.
But I’m not sitting here by myself.
There are the voices from the village, a women next to me weeding, the group sitting farther down and listening to the next speaker. There are my wife and children at home, far away. And there is also Juliette’s testimony and the buildings that should have become a school. I am there as well.
It is all there!
And out of all this "life" a feeling of trust gently grows, of being certain that none of these things stand on their own, are alone.
This feeling of connectedness gives me the courage to acknowledge that hundreds of children were hacked to death on this lawn between the school buildings. I find the strength to acknowledge that I cannot and do not need to bear this alone, in this moment.
I walk back to the group. I pull up a chair and join the group. Someone keeps looking at me, I look back and nod gently, she smiles back at me and continues listening to the speaker.
"This is the place."
A school was built here! An environment that should enable people to build things. A place of learning.
Carpentry and masonry classes would never be taught here. The metal fence, the lawn between the buildings, the rooms in the main building, the workshops, hills, voices in the village, … all silent witnesses now.
I believe the technical school of Murambi, as originally intended, is still a place of learning.
Even though its designers could never have suspected the subject matter of the classes.
...
"Where there is compassion, Murambi is impossible."
"This is the place of those who have reached the point where the great vows are taken. This is the place where all beings are liberated from the ocean of birth and death."
From: Maex, E. (2013). Dit is de plaats: Over zen, mindfulness en mededogen (This is the place: about zen, mindfulness and compassion). Tiel: Lannoo nv - www.lannoo.be/edel-maex