The road out to Bisesero was Judi's introduction to African overland travel. It was the typical African unpaved road experience with the added thrill of traversing several hills with very steep and unguarded precipices. Thankfully, Modest (our driver) was unperturbed by Judi's gasping and exhortations to "be careful."

When we arrived in Bisesero, the memorial looked closed. SInce the site was rather remote, we thought we had driven for over an hour on these roads for naught. As with other memorials we visited, someone eventually arrived with the key. Over the thirty to forty minutes that we would be at the site, perhaps eight to ten other men arrived, all of them survivors. They described for us the resistance against the Hutu interahamwe which took place in Bisesero. As they spoke, we stood in a room filled with the skulls and long-bones of the dead. Judi and I figured that there were about 2000 skulls laid out on the tables awaiting burial in the memorial museum that is yet to be finished. The survivors we met here were the first we met who were dissatisfied with the gacaca trials; they felt that the perpetrators lied and attempted to discredit the witnesses. In spite of this, all of the men were taking an active role in the local source of justice.

After leaving the Bisesero site, we continued even further up the road to the hospital in Mugoner - the only place where we witnessed an attempt by the Hutus to hide their crimes. Here the bodies of the dead had been thrown into a septic tank and subsequently burned. The hospital today serves as a medical center for the remote area of Bisesero; only the chapel, serves as a memorial to the atrocities that took place here. As the sun set, we began our way back to Lake Kivu.