A Day in Kigali
Kenneth D. Reimer
“A Day in Kigali” was first published in The Fool’s World, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2025.
In preparation for this trip to Rwanda, I read Roméo Dallaire’s book: Shake Hands With the Devil: the Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, and his account of the 1994 genocide etched a series of horrific images in my consciousness. Now, as I stand on this street corner in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, the city before me could hardly be more incongruous with those images I borrowed from Lieutenant-General Dallaire. At least on the surface, Kigali appears to be a city reborn. Many building are new. Its streets are paved, clean, and crowded with life. Although cliché, the word “vibrant” is applicable. People wear bright outfits, and I see smiles—more than you would expect in a metropolitan centre. The city seems happy.
It is the antithesis of my expectations, and I have to wonder what force could bring about such a transformation.
As does all of Rwanda, the modern city of Kigali lies beneath the shadow of its brutal past. One of the reasons I have come to this country is because I believe humanity carries a responsibility for coming to terms with its collective history. The sins of the father, or the mother, should not be visited upon the child, but each of us must deal with the consequences of what has come before. The type of tragedy that haunts Rwanda has happened too often for us to turn a blind eye to the possibility—perhaps certainty—that it will happen again. So, I have journeyed to this distant land, hoping I might come to understand some part of what it is that makes us who we are as a species.
As it turns out, I do gain come manner of enlightenment, but like Kigali itself, what I learn is the opposite of what I expect.
In part due to Dallaire’s writing, more so because of the movie, most people in the west have heard of the Hotel Rwanda. Its actual name is the Hotel des Mille Collines, meaning “of a thousand hills,” and its location provides for a commanding view of the city. It’s a nice place that appears to have been recently renovated. We walk through the lobby onto the back terrace where we find an outdoor restaurant and a pool—the very pool used for drinking water by the people who sought refuge in this hotel during the genocide. A family is swimming. We order drinks then find shade beneath an umbrella at the restaurant, and I struggle to reconcile the dichotomy of past and present. Having drinks on that terrace is not wrong, but it somehow feels that way.
Uneasy, I get up and walk to the strip of the grass overlooking the city. There lies the panoramic view of Kigali, but I do not see the city before me; instead, I envision Kigali as it looked in 1994. Columns of smoke rise like the ruins of an ancient temple. Myriad fires blaze luridly. There is the sound of gunfire…. I shudder and pull myself away from the edge. Kigali shines again in the sun.
An hour later, we stop for lunch at an expensive restaurant where I immediately feel out of place. When I travel to places where the standards of living are less than that of Canada, a show of relative wealth feels gauche and culturally insensitive. There is irony in this, of course, for it is a low standard of living that allows for this luxury. Whenever I return to Europe, I become a pauper, especially if our dollar is performing as it is while I pen this recollection.
While in the restaurant, I notice that our waiter has scars on his cheek and neck. I consider his age and judge that he would have been in his early twenties in 1994, then I am compelled to wonder what horrors he might have witnessed. What was done to him? Or, it occurs to me, what might he have done to others? In Rwanda, isn’t that a question that should be asked? Or perhaps the opposite is true—it’s the question that should not be asked, for what good can come of it now? Coming to terms with the past does not mean fixating on it.
Following lunch, we drive to the outskirts of the city to spend time at a memorial, and I witness an exchange that might normally pass unnoticed. Within the historical context of Rwanda, however, I find it startling. As we are walking back to our vehicle when one of our group shakes his head and asks our guide, Robert, how anyone could commit such atrocities. If this question were asked in a place such as Dachau, the numbing influence of time would lend the query an aspect of abstraction—it was a long time ago, and we would speculate as to the motivation of people from the past, but when this question is put forth in Kigali, the past is too near, and those people of the past stand before us.
Robert does not immediately answer the question. He stumbles for a moment, as though searching for a response, and I believe that I see conflicting emotions struggle across his face. Ultimately, all he gives in answer is an uncomfortable, somewhat embarrassed laugh. I stare at him, transfixed by the sudden realization that he had been involved in the genocide, and all I can think is, “My god, was he one of the Interahamwe?” It is just an impression—nothing to substantiate it, but the possibility of it jolts me. He isn’t speculating on the motivation of someone from the past; he was there. But of course he was; I knew that, or, at least, I should have known that. I had made a conceptual mistake, I begun the day thinking I was viewing the remnants of another generation’s tragedy, but what occurred in Rwanda is much more immediate than that. This happened in my time—as a member of humanity, this is my tragedy.
Whatever his involvement, I’m sure Robert relives a part of it every day of his life.
Where I stand, I am surrounded by the survivors of that holocaust, and what astonishes me is that they continue with their lives in the manner that they do. Humanity was stripped from them—the utter human devastation of that event is beyond me, but I believe I can understand a little of what it would take to come back from such horror. And as little as I can understand, I know that it would be beyond me to do it. I shake my head in disbelief—not that something such as the genocide could come to pass—but that people could have the will to come back from such a tragedy. Collectively, the people of Rwanda found the strength to lift themselves up, to stand and then to stride forward. It’s astonishing. For me at least, this is the true lesson of Rwanda. Yes, we must learn from the genocide, but we must also understand what has happened since. It is a testament to the extraordinary nature of our kind to move beyond. Our kind. All of us. I journeyed to a place of darkness, seeking insight to the human condition, but instead of shadow, I stumbled upon illumination.
On the street outside the memorial, I am approached by a man who has had his leg cut off above the knee. He hobbles toward me, then leans on one of his makeshift crutches and holds out his hand. He says something I do not understand, but his meaning is clear. I fumble in my pocket for some cash, and all I have left is a dollar bill—less than the tip that I gave the waiter during lunch. I feel something inside me break. Ashamed, apologetic, I extend my sad, little offering. Somewhat clumsily, he takes the money and puts it in his pocket.
His eyes never leave my own, then he does something that exemplifies the lesson of humanity that I learned in Rwanda—looking beyond history and race and cultural differences, beyond pain and longing—he smiles. It is pure and beautiful and full of hope. That smile—I think—that smile that could illuminate the world.
The Avalanche and the Whale
Kenneth D. Reimer
“The Avalanche and the Whale,” was first published in The NightWriter Review on November 12, 2024.
Two of my favourite photographs do not exist, and they never have. This is not so much a paradox as it is a statement of philosophy. Occasionally in my travels, there have been moments that have transpired so quickly it was impossible to experience them as a participant and also capture them in a photograph. Such serendipitous moments are rare, but they function as a touchstone for my beliefs as a traveller and force me to decide whether I want to live an event firsthand or simply record it as an outsider.
Whenever I travel, I walk around with a camera slung over my hip, so this may sound hypocritical, but to me the camera is an impediment—it stands between me and the authentic experience. To be honest, I kind of hate it. I have a difficult time being in the moment when I have to record the moment. Capturing an experience with a photograph, necessitates sacrificing some aspect of that experience. How can one savour life looking through a viewfinder?
When you take a picture, the scope of an event is narrowed to the image allowed by the lens—everything else becomes secondary, yet memory is so much more than a singular image: the entire spectrum of our sensory perceptions may be embedded in a recollection. As with a photograph, we “see” a memory, but we also feel, hear, smell, and sometimes taste it.
Consider a photograph of something as ubiquitous as the sun. The frozen image will tell us where it was positioned in the sky, even how intensely it shone, but our other senses are left dumb. The varied riches of experience are missing. Did that sun bore down on you, baking your skin while the desert wind whispered and pressed small granules of sand into your eyes? If it was the beleaguered sun of a prairie winter, we could see it frozen in its low orbit, caught in a ring of crystal air and mocking imitations, but we do not hear the muffled crunch of boots on snow and feel the air so cold it bites our lungs. Imagine the furtive sun of a jungle setting, so obscure as to not exist in the image. Yet it did move above you, flitting beyond the canopy and stealing glances between the leaves. In the speckled shadows, you drew in the fetid air and clutched at slick roots as you struggled up a muddy hillside.
To illustrate this point, let me describe two of my favourite photographs that do not fill empty spaces in any of my albums.
The setting for the first is Banderos Bay on the eastern coast of Mexico. We are in a small boat that for the last hour has been chasing whale sightings. The humpbacks are playing all over the bay, and we have seen dozens of them, but we’ve also experienced the baking Mexican sun, the arching blue sky, and the salt spray that leaves the salt tingle on your lips and a dry film on your skin. All of my photographs have come at the tail end of a sighting—literally. I have twenty pictures of flukes arching out of the water. We have seen quite a few whales breach; two even came up side by side, but they have all been at a distance—not really worthy of a photograph.
The afternoon is stretching out. We’ve seen more than our fair share, and it’s time to turn back to shore. I feel that the travel gods have been generous, and I am more than willing to call it a day. Then there comes a sudden, massive eruption of water scarcely fifty feet from our boat. A whale is breaching right beside us. My SLR is in hand, trigger finger poised, but some part of me refuses to place the lens finder between my eye and this tremendous spectacle.
The humpback soars twenty feet into the air with droplets of water cascading from it fins. As it nears the apex, it spins a graceful half-turn, exposing its belly to the sun, and the corduroy skin glistens. There is a pause, a moment of held breath and expectant silence, then it crashes back into the ocean. There is a deep whoosh, and its huge fins slap down in dual thunderclaps. Jets of water spray in horizontal fountains.
Stunned silence, but before the surge arrives to nudge our boat, a chorus thrills. I share a look of exultation with my companion, and she asks, “Did you get that?”
I glance down at the camera, all but forgotten in my hand, and do not suffer even a flash of regret.
Did I get that?
Absolutely.
Change the frame.
The setting is now the Canadian Rockies on the summit of Mount Saint Piran. Let me clarify: in this case, summit refers to the rounded cap of a small mountain, and it is only a four hour hike from Lake Louise. It’s probably the easiest scramble in the Rockies, but it offers absolutely stunning views. And appreciating the view is what I was doing when I failed to capture the second of my favourite non-existent photographs.
Approaching the summit of Piran, it is necessary to navigate a chaos of boulders ranging from the size of chair to a half-ton truck. At the top, however, the rocks are mostly fist-size and flat, so your footing is very secure. I have lucked out with a perfect day. There is no threat of rain, and the clouds are hardly a sprinkle. It feel as though I can see forever. The sun is warm on my shoulders, and there is just enough of a wind to begin cooling my sweat from the last hundred metres of jumping boulders. The air is so pure, it tastes like spring water.
Then I hear thunder, but it isn’t thunder. A massive ledge of snow and ice has broken loose from the face of Mount Lefroy. I am almost level with this frozen cascade, and I have a front row seat. Because of the distance, it seems to happen in slow motion. There is a slight disconnect between the avalanche I see and the one I hear, and it makes the even somewhat surreal.
My camera is at my feet, on top of my backpack, and as soon as I realize what is happening, my first instinct is to reach down and grab it. I begin the motion, but as soon as my eyes pull away from the distant mountainside, I realize my mistake. A voice inside me tells me to let it go. I straighten up and simply experience the show. I know that this sounds like an exaggeration, but it was such a sense of relief—this realization that I do not have to record everything.
I watch the snow and ice crash down and then spread in a white plume, and I am completely satisfied.
There is a Buddhist form of art in which intricate mosaics are created with coloured rice. The grains of rice are not fixed to any surface, so the image may last no longer than a day—according to the vagaries of the weather, and this transitory nature adds beauty to art. Sometimes I think that travel should be like that. Experience it, let the moment pass, treasure the memory forever.
So, here are two images that I would love to share, but I can’t. They exist only in memory. When I relive them, the memory is as much tactile as it is visual. My memory is not HD—it’s exponentially better. The experience of memory is woven into the sequential tapestry of my lifetime; its impact cannot be lost, nor can it be duplicated in binary code.
I love photography. I love to capture an image, and I enjoy sharing these moments of beauty. But it is very clear in my mind that the image is secondary to the experience. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it is no substitute for one second of experience.