A warm Muraho (Hello) from Rwanda!
I am about to finish my first week in this remarkable country and I have much to share. My mind and heart are teeming. Where to begin?! Our delegation took the first few days to become oriented with our purpose here and with the city of Kigali. During one intensely memorable day, we went from visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial to a reception at a primary school. The memorial site was emotionally overwhelming. I walked away feeling confusion, resentment, anger, sadness, pain, disbelief, guilt, and overwhelming grief.
While in a conversation with a young Rwandan man, the topic of the 1994 genocide came up and he hung his head while asking: “What does the outside world think of a country in which the people killed their own neighbors, teachers, doctors, brothers, wives, and children?” The pain and guilt that saturated his question made my heart ache. What do I think? What I have seen and experienced is a country of great resilience. The Rwandans are dealing with a tragic history in a manner that in commendable. The government has abolished the death penalty exposing the human ability to forgive; and the citizens have enacted a judicial system (Gacacas) which looks to have the people try one another and then reintegrate the genocidiares back into the society.
Ever since stepping off the plane, I have been received with open arms. Slowly I have accepted this warm reception. The first morning I timidly poked my head out of the steel gate which surrounded our lodging. My eyes rested upon a whole new world, but as I blinked and looked again I realized that it is not all that different. There are elements of humanity that cross all boarders, oceans, and time-zones. We are in this experience called life together, how amazingly exciting! Stay posted for more! Now that I have figured out the internet situation, I hope to make more frequent postings.
Amahoro (Peace)
"The more we learn, the more we understand; the more we understand, the more cherish; the more we cherish, the more we look to preserve life.” Quote from Seattle Zoo
Top~O Africa!
My dear sister Laura and I at Uhuru(Liberation) Point, Kilimanjaro
Warm Welcome
Gesosi School Visit
Congolese Refugee Camp in Rwanda
Bringing Soccer Balls?? An embarrassingly inadequate gift
Genocide~Never Again
Singing and dancing out of genocide and into unity
Rwandan Country Side
Ruhengeri village nestled in the volcanic mountains
Destination: Rwanda, Africa!
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2007
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Into Africa!
In under four weeks I will be stepping onto African soil! For five weeks I will be working with a non-governmental organization, Global Youth Connect (GYC), as part of a fourteen member delegation in Rwanda Africa. The delegation will explore the root causes of state-sponsored genocide and its repercussions in a post-conflict context. This exploration occurs through human rights workshops called “learning communities” which brings U.S. participants together with Rwandan peers to build a common framework of understanding. Together we hope to inspire peaceful changes by analyzing shared human rights concerns and by building new skills to better promote and protect universal human rights.
Genocide
On December 11, 1946, the General Assembly of the United Nations declared genocide a crime under international law. On December 9, 1948, the General Assembly went further, adopting Resolution 260A(III), the Convention on the Preservation and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which obliged “Contracting Parties” to “undertake to prevent and to punish … acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial, or religious group.”
"Just as a state's police swear to prevent and punish murder, so the signers of the Genocide Convention swore to police a brave new world order"(Philip Gourevitch).
April marks a time of remembrances. The 15th of April has been designated as the Holocaust Memorial Day. After the atrocity of the Holocaust, the global community made a pledge: never again. The Declaration of Human Rights was formed under the conviction that never again would be world teeter into the chaos of genocide. The Declaration recognized the “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world” (OHCHR 1996-2005). Yet, in April of 1994 chaos surfaced again.
Thirteen years ago, in April of 1994, a program of massacres decimated the Republic of Rwanda. Extremist leaders of Rwanda’s Hutu majority launched a campaign of extermination against the country’s Tutsi minority, killing of every tenth person of the population. The rains of April washed over the deceased, weeping for the human propensity towards genocide. The consequences of the Rwandan genocide continue to be felt through a myriad of issues.