It’s not often that Chantal Uwanyirigira finds the strength to come here, to her former church and now a memorial to the Rwanda genocide. She said this is the place where she refused to die.
Uwanyirigira is a survivor of the 1994 Rwanda genocide. "Coming back to this place 30 years later, it is still a big wound but it helps me to remember many of the people who died here," she said.
Their belongings are still here, frozen in time. And each piece tells a tale. A person's elbows tightly tied behind their back before being executed. Toddlers, killed with their parents.
The killings started a few days earlier. Many Tutsi families, including that of Uwanyirigira and her children, sought refuge here, thinking they'd be safe.
"First they threw grenades into the church, and many people lost their legs. There was so much screaming. Those who tried to leave the church were hacked with machetes," she said.
From church to burial ground
A place of sanctuary was turned into a burial ground. The remains of more than 45,000 people rest at the memorial site. Some are on display, a reminder of the massacre.
Uwanyirigira managed to escape the church but was injured.
"We fled to a nearby school, when I felt something hit me in the mouth, and other parts of my body, where I was holding my kids. I think it was a grenade. Then I saw that one of my babies had been killed," she said.
Uwanyirigira hid in nearby bushes. But the Interahamwe, the Hutu militia committing the genocide, found her and hacked her with a machete, throwing a rock at her head. Her friend lying next to her, hiding under banana leaves, was burnt alive.
"They came back often. They rammed a spear into me, mocking us, saying: 'You, cockroaches don't die easily.' I stayed in there for some time, my wounds were rotting, I had maggots falling out of them," said Uwanyirigira.
Days later, her husband found her and brought her to safety.
Government aims to create unity
Thirty kilometers southeast, another community is trying to reconcile with the past. In Mumuvumu village, former perpetrators and the families of their victims live side by side.
Louise Uwamungu survived, but her two brothers and a cousin were killed during the genocide.
"They were brutally killed, hacked here and here, in the head, in the throat, all parts of the body, shredded," said Uwamungu. "By losing my two brothers, I lost the hands that would have supported me."
The man who killed them, Cyprien Mataboro, was put on trial in one of Rwanda's post genocide tribunals and spent 12 years in prison. On his release, he asked Uwamungu for forgiveness, and she accepted. Now, they regularly participate in group activities, together with other former perpetrators and victims.
It's all part of a government program to create unity among Rwandans and reestablish trust following the genocide that split communities.
'You can't see into people's hearts'
But would that approach also work for Chantal Uwanyirigira? Could she forgive her attackers and killers of her baby?
"We have a good country that has brought us together, and we love each other, but it does not rule out the possibility that there could still be remnants of genocide ideology in some people's hearts. You can't see in people's hearts," she said.
Uwanyirigira's son who was killed during the genocide would now be a grownup, like her other kids. She hopes their generation will be able to put the genocide and the divisions of the past behind them.