Nairobi - Social Forum, Slum

18-28 Jan, 2007 - from Nairobi, an airplane home, and the Kigali airport

I recognize it has been quite some time since my last posting, and certainly there is a lot to process, but I’ll start first outside Rwanda, in Nairobi, Kenya, where I have been attending the World Social Forum. With an estimated 50,000 participants, nearly every country was represented in one of the largest gathering of social movements worldwide.

Over the last few days I have been attending a subset of sessions with The People’s Health Movement called the World Social Forum on Health. Along with panels on various health issues, this micro arena served as an open platform from which individuals could speak on health concerns from their countries. In attendance was a mixture of students, physicians, the suffering poor, radical liberals, and a combination of the bunch. But saying the conference was a smash success is constructing a façade. Some positives came as a result, but in general the organization was shoddy, transportation sketchy, and outcome questionable.

At one point mid-week a number of Nairobi City Council members sat in attendance. Kenyan participants did not take long to press their guests on the city’s garbage collection in slums and elsewhere. As it stands, any street functions as waste disposal. Council members argued it was the citizens’ responsibility to bring trash to dumping sites (ten by twenty foot designated plots of land). But that is a flimsy response. To begin with, sites are often front and back yards of homes - surely a health hazard. Economic factors and poor living conditions also make the problem much worse than heaps of coke bottles and rotten food. Have you ever wondered how people go to the bathroom without running water? The simple answer is plastic bags. These toilets are then dropped in dumping sites on the people’s way to work. To the council members’ comments, my co-attendees argued their compliance, saying only when the sites overflow do they set garbage in the streets. And in their support, in spite of tax dollars paid, it seemed that dumping sites were rarely picked up.

But we also discussed issues at a larger level, such as the effect of globalization on health. This is, for me, a new and fascinating topic, as I am starting to understand the interconnectedness of health, economy, and the environment. Allow me to give an example. Cocoa is a cash crop in Ghana, which the European Union only charges a 0.5% tariff to export raw beans into their countries. However, the tariff jumps to 31% if Ghanians wish to export a processed product. So Ghana sells its resources at a low cost in order to have them processed in the developed countries, then buys its food back at an elevated cost. Essentially the people get screwed. Unfair trade results in economic suppression, which means at a family-level less money is available to spend on health care, food, education, et cetera. At a larger level, the situation is not much better. Said one speaker, during the thirty years between 1960 and 1990, African countries borrowed approximately 540 billion dollars. They have since paid back $550B, but still owe $295B because of interest. He went on to point out Africa spends more on paying debt interest than it does on health and education. His point was that although bringing poor countries into the global market was supposed to be helpful, it has actually destroyed domestic economies and worsened people’s health. The blame seemed to be placed on the developed countries for exploiting the poor nations. But surely much of it ought to be shouldered by the governments of the poor nations as well. Adding to the existing problem of unfathomable corruption, they have not organized themselves to get production plants up and running in their respective countries, which is within their power to do.

On the last day, participants drafted health proposals for their respective continents. Those from Asia were concerned with drug companies exploiting their people as guinea pigs. Issues of sexual and reproductive health made their way to the South American recommendation. I helped a young Kikuyu draft the African document, which included issues of sanitation, affordable health care, availability drugs (anti-retroviral and other – which although are readily prescribed, are quite difficult to find, so I am told), and female genital mutilation.

As I fly back to Rwanda and reflect on the week, however, it all seems a big dance. Of course I hope I’m wrong. I hope my pessimism is misplaced and that the political power of the People’s Health Movement (www.phmovement.org), a global health body of local, regional, national, and international health organizations, is stronger than my perception. But without international governmental officials present, I wonder if any of these proposals will be read or taken seriously.

***

As much as I enjoyed working with an international body on international health concerns, by weeks’ end it seems that I have learned much more from those outside the conference than those from within.

It only took two matatus to reach the sports complex where the conference was held from the house I was staying. Sometimes it took more if drivers decided more business was available on other routes. Usually, though, the 15 km (9 miles) stretch could be made in two hours’ time.

Once completing the first leg, there are a number of routes that lead to the WSF. 45 always goes there, and 46 does as well, except the other day when 46 went to a slum. At first this was frustrating; a kilometer walk to the next stage, from which a taxi could be taken back to the main road, where one finds matatus that lead to the WSF. But then I looked around: a grid of blue and gray corrugated tin sheets nailed together like a third-grade science project. Barefoot children and trash heaps. Trash everywhere. Circling around the affordable housing was a trench - a moat of urine, shit and water run-off. A cesspool of filth. Picture a car, stripped of its wheels, thrown in the moat, serving as a bridge to some while housing others. Downstream a woman stooped over and used her hands to fill a bucket with the juice, trickling through all that trash. She poured out the yellowish-brown juice – not tinted, but a thick, dirty color, similar to what snot looks like at mid-day on a construction site. She poured it on some plants, but it was all over her hands, and where will she wash it off? She won’t. So now there is probably E-coli everywhere, and on the vegetables, and people will get sick.

The next matatu drove a short distance, then stopped to let someone out. We waited, as we always do, until it filled up again. We were still in the slum. And I noticed something else. Body odor in Rwanda smells like sweaty-armpit, like a teenage boys locker room – sick, but familiar if you’ve ever missed a day of deoderant. The smell on the bodies we picked up from the slum was of rotten fruit, and feces, and Lord knows whatever other odors their skin soaked up the previous night.

That morning it took 3 hours to go 15 kilometers, but now I understand the World Social Forum. In the opening days it frustrated me to no end, sitting for hours in meetings where the only development seemed to be a roomful of sore cheeks. But now I do not mind all the talking. Obviously I hope steps are taken as a result to bring change, but at least there was an arena for people to share their stories, a place to de-tox from the hell they live in. Meanwhile, each night I go home to a hot shower and eat until I am satisfied. In years past this made me feel guilty – but not anymore. The discrepancy does not bring fault but rather responsibility to use privilege appropriately in order to reduce hatred, increase respect and, for me, preach love through Christ Jesus.
And while I am here, I’ll share another story. On the ride last week I sat next to a rather pleasant, older mother. She looked like she was about 45, so I suspect she was actually in her mid to late thirties. We traded cell phone numbers and the next day she invited me over. Her family lived about two miles further down Ngong Road, past Nakumat Junction for those of you who were with me last summer. We got out and started walking when she warned me she about the slum. Not to scare me, but just so I was mentally and emotionally prepared. “Ben,” she said, “I want you to be here, in the slum, to see how we live so you don’t attend the Forum and discuss issues of health, return home, and never understand what this is”. We meandered down the dirt walkways, through the strip of market space, took a right where the clotheslines crossed, and turned into her tin home. One room for her, her husband and their two kids. It looked like maybe the seat-high table gets pushed forward at night, with the arm-rest width of their chairs designating sleeping spaces. There was a bed that was walled off by a sheet. But that was pretty much it – one room to sit, sleep, do homework and cook – one room to pass time. I took dinner with them – a glass of Sprite, although I think they were going to cook Ugali when I left (boiled flour and water). It was pretty miserable, and yet they did not complain. In fact, most of the people walking around seemed surprisingly happy. Most admirably, although my host told me of the struggles to make rent each month, it was not a sad-story-turned-sales-pitch. She never asked for money – or even implied that I should be sympathetic and give. She simply wanted me to see truth. I think that in coming here, I was hoping to be Jesus to people, to love and to share. But more often than not, they’ve been Jesus to me.

To Bryan, Jordan, Geoff, JJ, Bren, P, and the others

Wednesday 24 Jan, 2007 23:20 – Nairobi, Kenya

To the friends who are praying for me back home:

I am so far behind logging my thoughts and experiences – but the last few days, tonight in particular, have been incredible moments during which my missionary host family in Nairobi has poured into me. This evening Linnie, a pilot by trade, spent two hours viscerally answering questions about life’s challenges here. He also explained the intricacies of flying in the bush – airborne commitment points, down drafts, the physics that make short runways problematic, and hazards that do not exist in the US like finding grazing animals on runways, or missing wind socks, which up and left to become roofing for someone’s hut.

I appreciate more than ever the commitment these individuals have made, and sincerely wish to follow in their footsteps. As his job is more difficult without the luxuries available back home, so I long to become a great surgeon who knows how to operate effectively even without a full set of tools. And for what? For social justice? For preferential options for the poor? For adding pages to someone’s story when their book was expected to close? Well, yeah, that is all part of it. But more than that, in the name of Jesus Christ, for introducing people to a source of healing that neither doctors can provide nor science can describe.

I should say that it was wonderful to again meet with friends from the bush who have since found sponsors and are now studying in Nairobi. Matt, with the money you sent I paid for two young women to attend the conference as well. The fees for Africans were significantly less than those for Westerners, hence footing that bill seemed like chump change, but they were incredibly grateful. At the end of the first day, they thanked me but said they would likely not be able to return until the end. To get from home to Nairobi, they rode 24 hours in the back of truck, so I was a bit puzzled why they’d come so far to only attend two days. Probing beneath their embarrassment, I discovered they didn’t have financial means for transportation (a buck fifty per person per day), so I gave them cash for that as well... and for food. I felt strongly that if I was to invite them to the conference then I should also provide means of living so they could use the opportunity. All in all, I think I only spent seventy USDs on the two for ten days’ time, which seemed insignificant compared to the thought that women were being empowered – especially for the nurse who lives and works in an area where female genital mutilation is the norm.

A great bit of my time was also spent trying to get two from the bush admitted to medical school in Cuba (Havana’s Latin American School of Medicine is supposedly a tuition-less medical school with an emphasis on training people from underserved areas to go back to their underserved areas and provide health care). For some political reason, students are not allowed to apply on their own, but rather must rely on direct government-to-government communication, so I got to know the Kenyan-Cuban embassy well. Unfortunately I don’t think we made much progress, but I remain optimistic. All of this – the conference and the embassy - is really a microcosm of what I hope to do in life, use my privilege to stick a foot in the door and give others opportunities in the larger geopolitical realm. At any rate – Matt, thanks for your faith and trusting me with to put that money to good use – and for the rest, as always, prayers appreciated.

Mail Me

If anyone wishes to send letters but distrusts international mail, a reliable alternative presents itself. At the end of the month I'll be attending a conference on international social justice in Nairobi, and will be meeting up with a friend from the US whose organization is also attending. My friend, Emily, has kindly agreed to bring me any letters you wish to send with her to Kenya. So if you'd like to write, please have your letter delivered (arriving before January 19th) to

Emily Carlson
Attn: Huntley
4126 Chester Ave. Apt. #2
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Please also feel free to send chocolate, pictures, and/or music.

Thank you and sincerely,
BJFH

Medical School

Monday 8 Jan, 2007 – 08:56 Kigali

It was a beautiful day at 6 this morning when my alarm clock got me out of bed. The sun had just started to share its rays, the birds sing their songs, and the preacher man next-door scream about heaven and hell like there was no tomorrow. We get that a lot in Kimihurura, my neighborhood, living next to the Pentecostal church. It was a big day for me, a 22 year old near-adult, getting ready for his first day of medical school... as a lecturer. In two hours’ time I was to stand in front of 47 second-year students and introduce them to their course in Medical Laboratory Technology. But before we get there, let’s back up a bit and talk about the formation of this nebulous internship.

Two years ago I met a Rwandese physician named Maria Kabanyana at an HIV/AIDS conference in Iowa City. Over the course of a few days we became friends, talking about AIDS, genocide and a few of the world’s other plagues over coffee at a downtown shop. We kept in distant communication via email, often with long gaps in between messages. I’m not sure if it was first my proposition or her invitation, but somewhere along the line we began discussing the possibility that I’d visit Rwanda, getting a first hand experience of its health care system.

She put me in touch with an administrator at the Kigali Health Institute (KHI), to whom I sent my resume and request for an internship. A couple of emails later everything was confirmed, sort of. I had received notice that I’d be interning in the department of “Med. Lab. Tech.”, which I took to mean medical laboratory technician. Given my experiences as an EMT on an ambulance, working in the ER, and spending the past summer as a health care provider in a northern Kenyan bush hospital, I assumed the internship would entail something in clinical medicine.

However, two weeks before departing from the US, it occurred to me that I did not really know the details of my internship. Upon enquiring as to what precisely it would entail, I received the following message:

"Benjamin, courses here will commence 8th January. At the moment we are about to start the year plan but will be coming to you shortly, probably on monday. At the moment however, Is there any subject in medical sciences you would like to teach?"

What? Teach? I am merely a student on furlough, hoping to be admitted into medical school myself, not teaching it. But then this realization: with genocide came the collapse of a health care system. Doctors and students alike either sought refuge or were murdered. And of those who fled, few will likely return to this nightmarish land. Rwanda is now proactively trying to rebuild its health sector, with focus put on training nurses, paramedics, and medical students. And so yes, teaching. After all, I do have a degree from a reputable institution and thus license enough to share what I’ve learned with students who have not had the same opportunity. After a flurry of exchanges and conflicting details from multiple sources, I decided to just show up, figuring it would all make sense once I arrived.

As it turns out, “tech.” actually stood for technologies as in “medical laboratory technologies” and not technician, as I had incorrectly presumed. Furthermore, KHI, I learned, was actually a university and not a teaching hospital. Hence, what they keyed in on was not work experience but the Biomedical Engineering degree under my belt.

Last Thursday the Med Lab Tech professor and I got together to discuss my stay at KHI; he had not yet planned out the semester, but thought it appropriate that I begin on day one, teaching a lecture on Lab Safety. Then in a few weeks I’ll travel around the country facilitating the curriculum’s phlebotomy education at branch campuses, which involves lecturing, demonstrating, teaching, and supervising during their in-hospital rotations.

I also have a joint-appointment in the department of Medical Imaging, where I’ll be teaching the physics of Ultra Sound, X-ray, and CT (I made sure to wiggle my way out of MRI because of its dauntingly complex physics). This will likely take the majority of my time, studying by night and lecturing by day – seven hours, five days a week. Fortunately they use the same textbook as I studied from during my master’s level course. Unfortunately they only have one book to share between myself, the other instructor, and about 45 students.

So back to today – the educational system in Rwanda. After a small breakfast (peanut butter and jelly on a bread roll – peanut butter costing $4 a jar but, for me, absolutely worth it), I took tea, sent emails, and headed out the door. The first matatu (translation: twenty people crammed into a microbus, calling itself a taxi) took me downtown. The next one far away from where I needed to be (the chauffer, taking advantage of my ignorance, told me he was going one way, took my money, and went the other). Frustrated, I hopped off, said my prayers, and took a motorcycle-taxi to campus (my first time on a motorcycle since working in the hospital three years ago, where I saw my fair share of paralyzed cyclists).

I made it to the empty classroom just in time for my 8 o’clock lecture. “But where are the students,” I asked Roman, the paid professor. He assured me they’d trickle in. And then the most peculiar thing happened. Seeing that I was in the right place at the right time and ready to teach, he wished me luck and shuffled back to his office – and never came back.

I had 2 students by quarter after, 5 by 8:25, then back down to 3 at half past eight. Janitors came ten minutes later to pour buckets of soapy water on the floor, a perfunctory cleansing of an already clean floor. Apparently the first day class is a casual one and, for laboratory students, optional at best. Most of the class, said the ones who were present, were looking for housing and attending to other needs, and probably would not show. This is cultural difference I find difficult to understand, as I would have arrived last Friday to take care of these things ahead over the weekend. But so it goes – just because it is not the way I’d choose to arrange life does not mean it is wrong. So after an impromptu lesson in Ultra Sound physics (the only other subject I had been reading up on) I dismissed the small but diligent crowd for the day.

And so I roll with it – but hopefully tomorrow I’m rolling with a full class. At least now I’m on the verge of teaching, and can face the street people knowing I am doing something – helping to rebuild a health care system that can address their needs.

In the mean time, back to the books…

History of Genocide

Friday 5 Jan, 2007 – 07:29 Kigali

Nearly every aspect of life in Rwanda is somehow marked by the events of and leading up to the 1994 massacre. Hence, it occurred to me that before learning from or contributing to anything, I had to first examine the genocide and understand its origins from a Rwandese perspective. Before my internship began, I asked lots of questions and sorted through their various responses. I found that there were no answers, only explanations to answers.

Peter continues to be a strong source of information, and the other day he introduced me to the Genocide Memorial. The museum’s main goal is to unravel the history of Rwanda’s ethnic cleansing in hopes that it might never happen again – here or elsewhere. We walked through the exhibit, watching videos, looking at pictures, and reading captions, while Peter filled in the gaps. What follows is my best attempt to consolidate chaos and repackage it in a detailed yet simplified and hopefully understandable version. This is the history of genocide.

To understand 1994, we must begin in 1895. Originally Rwandans were united as one people, speaking one language, and living in one country. They distinguished themselves into three categories – Tutsis farmed animals, Hutus farmed land, and the primitive Twa made their living in pottery and traditional arts. Because of intermarriage between the ambiguous groups and crossing of potentially different gene pools, claiming these are ancestrally different people is a liberal assertion.

Germans first occupied Rwanda in 1895, describing natives as peaceful cohabitants. But when Belgium assumed control after the First World War in 1923, they divided Rwandans based on head size, presumed mental capability, and a number of other factors. They reasoned that Tutsis were tall, long-fingered, pointy-nosed, and had beautiful girls, Hutus were medium height, flat-nosed (had comparatively ugly girls?), and the Twa were short and stout in stature. Although many of these differences were probably be diet-associated, loosely applied Beligian distinctions counted Hutus, Tutsis, and Twa at 84, 15, and 1 percent of the population, respectively. Additionally, Tutsis were thought to be intellectually superior, perhaps because they were wealthier and better represented in tribal leadership, and were thus granted privileged positions in exchange for Belgian loyalty.

The power differential continued until King Rudahigwa, a Tutsi, passed away in 1959. Subsequent to his death, in a bid to usurp power, came the first Hutu-imposed massacre. Tutsis who were not killed sought refuge outside the country. Then in 1961, a year before Rwandan independence, came the first elections. Kayibanda, of the Parmehutu party, ran on a Hutu-emancipation platform, preached division between the Hutu and Tutsi (who had fled the country), and easily won the election. Shortly thereafter, remaining Tutsis were relocated, leaving animals, supplies, and houses behind, to an area called Bugesera in order to keep separation between the two groups. Ironically enough, at the same time a Hutu named Habyirimana (who would become an important genocidal figure) started the MRND party, claiming it was the only political party and that all Rwandans were supporting members.

MRND influence grew, and all the more as Habyirimana became friends with then French President Mitterrand who supported MRND by all possible means, including money and weapons (the connection between Habyirimana and France is extremely important. Don’t forget this, because it will come up later. Subliminal message: France = Hutu). From the MRND party was derived Interhamwe, the infamous Hutu youth militia. They were a dangerous and flamboyant group, advocating for Hutu power at Tutsi expense. Aided by extremist media, genocidal ideology was in place and perfected by the early 1990’s.

This next paragraph discusses other emerging parties at the time. Skip it if you wish, as it is breeding grounds for confusion and excessive information. I should note that commonly understood abbreviations are given for French phrases, which I don’t understand.

At the same time came the formation of MDR, an opposition party yet loyal to the Hutu cause. In the post-genocide years MDR joined the government, but was disbanded in 2002 for its genocidal ideology. Another group emerged named PSD, which comprised of both Hutus and Tutsis. It continues to exist today, and is most highly represented by the current Senatorial President, who is an active member. I’ll also mention here the name Hassan Ngeze, a Hutu extremist and editor of the radical newspaper Kangura who promoted the word Inyenzi, meaning cockroach, as a reference to the Tutsi, and who stated “If the cockroach lifts its head again, they will all be exterminated”. Conspiracy theorists: Ngeze published two articles in Kangura predicting a Habyirimana death in March of 1994 (death occured April 6 of that year). Lastly, CDR – Coalition of the Defense of the Repulic – a sick and twisted group of Hutu radical death squads. As I stood, reading their story, Peter stretched out his long, narrow finger to a picture on the wall. “That man, he was the leader. When he died in February ‘94, they killed my father. I told you, the man was killed at 1, and my father returned from Uganda at 2. He was home for two hours when they come my house and kill him at 4.”

All in all, over 700,000 Tutsis were exiled from Rwanda between 1959 and 1973 as a result of the Belgian colonialist-backed ethnic cleansing. Prevented from returning, these expatriates joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and, wanting to reestablish equal rights and allow exiled return, invaded the country on October 1st, 1990. As an aside, this was the same day Peter’s father was first arrested for being Tutsi (6 month sentence). Civil War broke out, leading to the internal displacement of Rwandans in government refugee camps.

With a brilliant propaganda campaign underway, genocide was rehearsed on eight occasions before April 6th, 1994, the date we know as the genocide’s beginning. Let these organized Tutsi massacres sink in as you read out loud. October, 1990. January and February, 1991. March and August, 1992, January and March, 1993, February, 1994.


There is still some ground to cover, however, before the actual genocide. In July, 1992 Habyirimana and RPF agreed on a ceasefire. And in August, 1993 the RPF and the Rwandan government signed the Arusha Peace Accord. From this was to come a transitional government, which was to then be exchanged for a democratically elected government. Refugees were also to be allowed re-admittance, and French troops were to leave, making way for the newly established United Nations Assistance Mission In Rwanda (UNAMIR). This all seemed like a viable path to a peaceful solution, except that Habyirimana saw the stipulations as a surrender to RPF, and thus a transitional government was never formed, opting instead to accuse the RPF of manipulating the Arusha Peace Conference.

To throw sparks on fuel, Habyirimana’s regime enterest the largest Rwandan arms deal in history with a French company for 12M USD, a loan guaranteed by the French government (remember the friendship between Habyirimana and Mitterrand? Here it is again).

Alright, news junkies, tabloid readers, and the rest of you dirt-digging, secrets-found-out lovers, here’s your meat and potatoes. Now introducing an informant named Jean-Pierre (JP), a member of then Hutu President Ngiÿÿmpatÿÿ’s (of the pro-HutÿÿMRND parÿÿ) seÿÿriÿÿ guard.

On January 10ÿÿ, 1994 (three months before the genocide), JP, fearing the president has lost control of extremists, leaks to the UN that there are 1700 Interhamwe youth milita, and 300 more being trained weekly. Furthermore, that they are registering all Tutsis in Kigali as part of an extermination plan, in which they predict death rates at 50 Tutsis per minute. They were supposedly also planning to kill Belgian peacekeepers to force the UN to withdraw. JP was even willing to go to the press if UNAMIR could secure his protection, which they could not. The following day UNAMIR head, Lt. General Roméo Dallaire (the blue beret-wearing UN man from the Hollywood hit ‘Hotel Rwanda’), wrote the Security General’s military advisor in New York about JP’s leak and suggested an arms seizure, but no action was taken. Instead, Kofi Annan wrote in return, “No reconnaissance or other action, including response to request for protection, should be taken by UNAMIR until clear guidance is receive from HQ”.

April 6th, 1994.

As Rwandan president Habyirimana and Burundi president Ntaryamira were approaching Kigali’s international airport, their plane was shot down by missile at 20:23. By 21:15 roadblocks were in place and houses being searched – an undeniably preplanned genocide. The military was armed and with one purpose: to identify and kill all Tutsis. Prime Minister Agathe Uwiligiyimana was to become head of the country in wake of the president’s death but, although a Hutu herself, held anti-genocide beliefs. She was murdered the following day, along with her husband, before she could address the nation. A man named Jean Kambanda, fully involved in genocide, assumed authority and distributed weapons to killers.

No authorities, no meaningful international presence, hatred, no restraints. Jailed, terrorized, murdered, burned, raped, tortured, hacked. Machetes, clubs, guns. Chains found around brothers and sisters at the base of latrines. Relatives forced to kill each other, then murdered in their agony.

We paused here, Peter and I. There hanged an illuminated picture of the St. Famille church, his 45-day refuge. The caption said something about Father Wenceslas collaborating with Hutu militia. Peter: “That one is called Wenceslas. He used to preach to us with a bulletproof vest and pistol at his side. The militia, yeah, they were the friends of him. Yeah, I remember it, he would just invite them. They were become comfortable. And then they come when even he was not there. They come and just take people away. That Wenceslas, he’s now preaching in France”.

“You remember all that?”

“Of course,” he said, surprised it was even a question.

“So you hid?”

“Ah,” a gasp of disgust, “but where? The church is open. Look, I sat there,” pointing to a pew in the front right corner, “and maybe they walk down this one path and take the one two up from me, or two back from me. Or this one there, next to me.

“You see, I was at my uncle’s on 6 April and went to St. Famille on 10 April. I was there for that whole time. Once I go to the hill to get maybe to Milles Collines Hotel, but no. And maybe this way to go to other church, but no. All this taking of people by Hutu and what what. Then UNAMIR soldier took us finally behind RPF line in mid June, and that’s where I was for the other genocide days”.

Before the numbers stopped at 300,000 orphans, 85,000 child head of homes, and 2,000,000 refugees dispersed throughout camps in Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire, the RPF had to reach Kigali, from where the Genocidaires controlled the country. Once they reached there the genocide would effectively end.

On April 21st the UN Security Council passed a resolution stating they were, “appalled at the ensuing large scale of violence in Rwanda” which resulted in deaths of thousands. At the same meeting they also voted to reduce UNAMIR to 270 volunteer Ghanian personnel.

Although Dallaire predicted it would only take 5,000 troops to squash the genocide, the only soldiers to arrive in Rwanda before the genocide ended were French. The goal of their Opéracion Turquoise was to create a safe haven in southern Rwanda between conflicting sides. Rwandans today claim it really only functioned as a safe zone for Genocidaires, fleeing the southward moving RPF forces, to escape into Zaire.

May 17 was the creation of the Security Council’s UNAMIR II – 5,500 troops and mandate to use force. The US was to contribute 50 troops and armored personnel carriers. But for whatever reason, it took a month for those to arrive in Uganda, then more time to get into Rwanda.

By genocide’s end there was plenty of support in the international refugee camps, but survivors remaining within the country were overlooked. Adding to this microcosm of hell, a problem which lingers today and which might never be eradicated, was that many known HIV+ Hutu militia raped survivors, who were without quick access to antiretroviral treatment. By contrast, the museum points out, Genocidaires in the international court system received immediate drug therapy.

The museum ends by routing visitors through a series of chilling rooms. The first a collection of snapshots strung side by side, floor to ceiling, covering every wall – pictures of victims, donated by survivors. I followed Peter as he motioned for me to join him. He wanted to show me a picture of his uncle, who owned the house that was engulfed in flames when his mother, and two sisters (4 months and 2 years) were murdered. The man in the picture also died in the fire. And then down a little ways, on an adjacent wall - a picture of family friends. He didn’t know how they died.

The next room was dark, the only light coming from illuminated cases – nicked femurs and cracked skulls. There’s a mass grave in Nyimirambo, a neighborhood not too far from here. When the memorial opened, any interested persons were invited to transfer a few bones to new mass memorial grave outside the museum. Peter wondered whose bones he held, and whether or not someone held his mother or sisters, who died in Nyimirambo.

The next room contained shirts and pants behind glass panes, hung from the ceiling as if they were standing - obviously clothing taken from bodies on the streets. The last one was wearing a maroon sweatshirt, white writing. Cornell University. It amazes me how much of the West is exported and how little assistance extended.

There is another floor to the memorial, but they kicked us out after two and a half hours, well passed closing time.

That night I walked into our unlit bedroom. I thought my friend was asleep until he shot up – standing on his bed like my sister and I did as children. He asked to share photos of his parents, and reached to the back of our tall dresser to get them out. Earlier in the evening we talked to my mom on Skype, a free online videoconferencing service. She waved at him. His parents remained still, but I don’t doubt that they speak to him just as sweetly as mine do to me. His mother was beautiful. The photos, he said, will hang next to his uncle at the memorial when he’s ready for others to see them. Then we went to bed.

It’s said that because of colonialism and genocide, Rwanda is a country with a future but without a past. No doubt other sides are being hidden, diplomatic ties with France having been cut. But understanding how Rwandans tell their own tragedy allows me to move on and pursue the work for which I originally came.

Rwanda - Genocide

Saturday 30 Dec, 2006 – 23:05 Kigali


Rwanda. I’ll start by addressing the first thing that comes to your mind, because it is the first thing that comes to my mind.

Every day I try to see this country as its own entity, outside the iconic genocide of twelve years past. But by each night I fail. It is impossible to be in Kigali and not see genocide written in mangled fingers of beggars, or in the obvious limp of a passerby. It wakes me up at night so that I cannot fall back asleep, and I lay restless, confused, and lightheaded – psychologically disturbed. It is impossible to understand in the first place how mothers can be made to kill their children, and husbands their wives. What foundation lies beneath this depravity? And in forfeiting this answer, it is then also impossible to figure out how to take in and react to today’s lingering scars.

These marks obviously manifest themselves visibly in the physical mutilation of bodies, but they also show economically and elsewhere. Orphans swarm to sell anything you could ever want (and then all that you would never want), hoping to make a buck – but at least they’re working. Another group just flat out begs. Not just kids, but adults as well. Even elderly. I find this most disturbing – individuals who, after living long lives, don’t have anyone to care for them. And then come stories of homes where kids raise kids – real stories, not just ones we talk about. But to be fair to Rwanda, not everyone is destitute. In fact, there is quite a bit of wealth – nice buildings and business suits to walk in them. The problem is not poverty, but that it exists in wealth’s reach. The ones who have made it worked hard and harnessed some inner strength to get them beyond genocide, the common denominator. But what determines whether or not this strength is accessed?




Two stories.

A girl was raped during the genocide and in the process contracted AIDS. Her aggressor was recently released from prison, so she went to his house to say: “You raped me and it hurt. But I forgive you because if I don’t, I’ll never move on”. Afterwards, a friend questioned whether she had only gone preemptively to dissuade the man from attacking her again. “No,” she said, “Although a Hutu, I imagined he was just as traumatized by the genocide and I wanted to release him from self-hatred. In this way Rwanda will move forward”.

***

At 20, Peter is a thin, quiet man whose clothing delicately drapes his narrow frame. He is tall and lanky, with searching eyes and a hollow face, darker than most, which pokes through like a turtle coming out of its shell. He was 8 years old in 1994 and at home, hiding behind a cabinet, when he watched his father beat for being Tutsi. He lied when the militia found him, saying he didn’t know where his mother was. They never found her under the bed in the room next door. He saved her life. But they beat his father more, then killed him.

Six weeks later, now in April, the president’s plane was shot down and mass killings began. Peter was in a relative’s home seeking shelter when his mother was kidnapped. He never saw her again; three months later heard she was burned with dozens of others in a mass grave.

Eventually he snuck into a church, which was a little less dangerous. But even there, Tutsis were being taken and tortured at random. He heard rumors of safety in a hotel called The Milles Collines – Hotel Rwanda – just 400 meters up the hill and tried to make the journey but, fearing death, turned back. Soon enough the Red Cross brought food. The UN posted guards, blocking the church’s entrance - and helped move refugees behind RPF lines (Rwandan Patriotic Front – Tutsi expatriates who banned together under the leadership of Paul Kagame, current President, to sweep through Rwanda and end the genocide).

Peter is my roommate, and today we went to the church that hid him. There was a wedding and everyone was happy. He says he’s no longer psychologically disturbed, but every night he listens to a radio talk show about the genocide. This morning he turned it on at 5. People still call in with information about displaced individuals, trying to reconnect family. He’s quiet and keeps to himself, but I like him. We go on walks together and I see genocide from Tutsi eyes.

Like the girl in the first story, and like almost every other Rwandan, he forgives those who wronged him. I cry when I think about this because I’m not capable of doing the same even at a lower level.

Rwanda is a land of bloodshed, true, but it’s also home to the greatest reconciliation story in recent history, and perhaps ever. After genocide, retaliation was on the table, but the people were tired of killing and longed for healing. Rwandese have moved on, and even discarded ethnic distinctions. As an interesting note, because of intermarriage and mixing of the gene pools, there’s little difference between Hutu and Tutsi other than a stamp on a government issued identity card (which is no longer stamped). They are one people working together for one country.