Desecration of Kabakobwa that left hearts broken

Long time ago, before the arrival of Christianity in Rwanda, Kabakobwa was a very famous place. During that time, three or four older women used to accompany a group of young girls to collect grass (Guca inshinge) that was used to cover the floor of their parents’ houses ; or look for brooms (Guca imyeyo). Sometimes the girls would just be accompanied to the hill weave beautiful Rwandan baskets and mats (kuboha). Once, the women and the girls were on the top of the hill, no one else was supposed to climb there. Men were especially not allowed to approach Kabakobwa because it was considered taboo to do so. At the peak of Kabakobwa hill, was a large flat area permanently covered by green grass, no matter the season—dry or wet. This space was reserved for only young girls whose skin and age were as tender as the fresh grass atop Kabakobwa. It was a female sanctuary. Some thought that older women accompanied the younger ones there just for protection, but in reality there was more to it. Curious young boys could not keep away and would sometime stealthily climb the hill under the cover of tall grass and thick shrub with the hope of catching a glimpse of what really transpired. But like everyone else, they didn’t dare to approach the top and from their distant hideouts, all they would hear were giggles and faint laughter. For that reason, all they could know was that the girls were up to something—or were simply being happy being together. These secretive onlookers thought that the girls were talking about silly things, but unknown to them was the fact that the beautiful girls, in their early teens, were talking about love. Sharing their future dreams—each one wondering out loud who would be her ‘Prince Charming.’ Some romantic dreams were shared on the top of Kabakobwa under the supervision of a few elderly women who made sure the girls learned a thing or two during the day’s session. None of these boys ever really knew the motive of these female excursions on the top of the hill that lasted until sunset. And none of them ever understood the real cause of their laughter. Only the girls and their teachers knew the secrets of Kabakobwa, which they would also pass on to their own daughters and granddaughters—in a tradition of passing on knowledge through generations—so that the ritual did not disappear. Unfortunately, this chain was suddenly broken by the arrival of Jesus Christ, who needed a big house on the top of a hill, from where He could watch over his followers and prevent them from falling into the devil’s trap. But nobody dared to erect Christ’s house on Kabakobwa. Instead, a big church was built on the opposite hill. Nonetheless, things never remained the same in Kabakobwa as women felt exposed to the sight of Christ and his male followers. Whenever the women tried to engage in their innocent rituals, they felt watched. They felt Christ’s gaze from far. They couldn’t stand the fact that they were somehow exposed to the sight of His male followers. Yet above all, the church banned what it called pagan sexual education, so Kabakobwa was desecrated and demystified. In the eyes of the Christian converts, Kabakobwa was an abomination according to church teachings. God’ spokespersons put an end to these female-only gatherings on Kabakobwa. Sadly, nobody asked for the opinion of older women, who also visited Kabakobwa during their teenage days, before desecrating the women’s hill. From then, Kabakobwa was no longer popular; the young virgins and their aunties were powerless to preserve it. Christ and his male followers took over the whole surrounding, but they were afraid to touch Kabakobwa. The only symbol of female power left in the area was the statue of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ, smashing what looked like a snake. It didn’t stand on Kabakobwa but on the opposite neighboring hill in front of a big Catholic church. Collective imagination declared that it was a statue of a white woman who came from heaven to smash sin committed by successive generations of women on the hill. Today, there are no more voices of girls giggling on the ‘hill of women.’ Only church bells and Christians’ hymns occasionally interrupted the monotony of silence. The big blow Of course, none of those performances could compete with the rhythmic songs of the young female dancers on top of the old Kabakobwa. Yet the real desecration of Kabakobwa was to happen in 1994 as told by a women’s group, Abasa. The story of Abasa, is not fiction, neither is it a product of my own imagination. It is told by eyewitnesses—the survivors of Kabakobwa, who now live in Sahera, Mukura sector in the district of Huye. As the name of their association suggests, Abasa is a group of women who share very ugly memories of the past. They share a burden of rape that they ironically suffered on Kabakobwa, the ‘sacred’ hill on which girls received their first lessons to womanhood. In 1994, at the height the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, thousands of Tutsis who lived in Mukura were lured by a local leader to take “refuge” on Kabakobwa hill with a promise of full protection. Women, children, the elderly and young men—all estimated at 60,000 gathered there on a false promise of safety that turned out to be a big trap of the killer state machinery, the interahamwe. It took days for Abasa women to tell me their story. Their story was punctuated by a heavy silence, a silence, filled with words that cannot be uttered. They couldn’t say what they went through in 1994. In a way, language failed them as the following statements shows: “I do not know how to say it (Sinabona uko mbivuga.) What I endured is a calamity (Ibyo nanyuzemo ni akumiro),” said a member of the group. “Sometimes even when we feel like talking about it, we get afraid and ashamed…We don’t want to be seen as loose cannons…” added another. It is also on the top of Kabakobwa that their husbands and children were hacked to death. In a just a few weeks, hundreds of Tutsis who had gathered on the small hill were killed, except a few women who survived brutal gang rape in the muddy sorghum fields in front of their sons and in-laws. Taboos were publicly broken, there on Kabakobwa. On Kabakobwa, girls were defiled and older women were sexually tortured and mutilated. How ironic! Today, the latter express their ordeal in statements like: “Some of us are no longer women.” They lost their femininity on the top of Kabakobwa. How ironic! How ironic that rape was their destiny on Kabakobwa! Who could have imagined it? Who could have pictured this? No one except the perpetrators. The divine church, that had chased the young girls off their hill long ago, didn’t protect its followers during the Genocide. And where was the Virgin Mary in all this? Why didn’t she smash the heads of those Interahamwe killers and rapists? Even in the face of the rape of a 7-year-old young girl, she kept quiet. Why didn’t she use her other powers? Maybe like the Abasa of Sahera, what she saw was beyond imagination. Through the years of holding each others’ hands in solidarity during their long walk to recovery, the Abasa women have tried to tell their stories as their poetic emblematic motto says: Muze murebe Abasa barasabana (Come and see the Abasa, they welcome you) Muze murebe Abasa, basangira ijambo (Come and see Abasa, they share their stories) Muze murebe Abasa barasangira (Come see the Abasa, they share everything) Today, they share the same horrible past of 1994 but they are no longer defined by it. Out of the ashes of 1994, these women discovered strength they never knew they had. They testified against the perpetrators in local, national, and international courts. They spoke out so that justice could be served; so that their loved ones in a mass grave could get a decent burial. Recently, they were able to find the remains of the loved ones—thanks to the president of the association who for many years she was considered some to be crazy every time she insisted that her people were in a mass grave. She cried out to the new leaders of Huye telling them that under some trees on Kabakobwa, was a mass grave where thousands of Tutsi were buried. Few wanted to listen. But recently, her cries were finally heard when survivors gathered to bury the remains of their loved ones with honor. A memorial has been built on Kabakobwa in honour of those who perished during the genocide.