The Miracle of Reconciliation in Mbyo

Siegfried Grillmeyer

by Siegfried Grillmeyer

Story

Some encounters we cannot classify, even if we try again and again. And even today – after years – I can’t quite understand the story of Jeannette and Mathias and thus this narrative about the miracle of reconciliation in the end.

It was a wonderful summer day in July and on our schedule was “Visit of the reconciliation village Mbyo – conversations with contemporary witnesses”. The long drive from the capital Kigali to the east of the country was a delight. Those who are on the road do not need an explanation why Rwanda is called the “Land of a Thousand Hills” or the “Switzerland of Africa” and get into raptures about the wonderful landscape and the hospitable people. And at the same time, mass graves everywhere are a reminder of the terrible killings of the Hutu against the Tutsi, when about one million people were literally slaughtered in the few weeks from April to July 1994. Almost ten years after this genocide, a general amnesty was granted, and the reconciliation villages project was launched.

And in one of these reconciliation villages, we are now sitting and listening to this story: Mathias Sendegeya begins without further ado: “I have killed six people”. Although they were neighbors and they had known each other since childhood, the now 56-year-old let himself be carried away by hatred and inhuman propaganda and wiped out an entire family. Even though he tells his story again and again to groups of visitors, even after 22 years it is visibly difficult for him to talk about youthful delusion and guilt, and his eyes roam strangely frantically from one point to another. Jeannette Mukabyagaju, sitting next to him, also sometimes interrupts her narration and seems to be searching for words by looking into the distance. Her parents, sister and brother were brutally murdered with a machete and of the extended family only 3 relatives and she remained alive. For almost two months she hid in a latrine from the gangs of murderers from the neighborhood.It was not easy to rebuild a village together – perpetrator and victim hand in hand – after this harrowing horror. But the concept of gradually building trust and reconciliation by working together seems to be working. Today, they live in two houses across the street from each other, and the murderer Mathias watches over her three children and the victim Jeannette sometimes cooks for his family. “After all, the Bible says we should forgive!” she says, giving us a message to take with us on our way, “Feel free to report that reconciliation is possible!”

I take this message with me and often think of these unequal neighbors who reach out to each other after unimaginable atrocities and with it the glimpse into the abyss that shows us what people are capable of.

© Siegfried Grillmeyer 2023-01-03

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