Rwanda and Amanda

May 13, 2009

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I went to Rwanda for a week and learned all about the genocide and the reconciliation process going on. We then had four days of debriefing in Entebbe (where the airport is). I’ve also been to visit Amanda and am still with her now.

Rwanda was our last trip as a USP (Uganda Studies Program) group. We took a bus down from Mukono to the capital of Rwanda, Kigali. It took us 13 hours to get there. When we crossed the border into Rwanda it seemed as if we had entered an entirely different planet. The roads were smooth, the ditches were clean of garbage, there were speed limits which drivers followed, and pedestrians were given rights! The road from Mukono to the Rwandan border was filled with potholes, speed bumps, people, bicycles, slow motorcycles, and livestock. The roads in Rwanda were taken care of regularly, it was illegal to litter, and pedestrians actually had sidewalks to walk on and crosswalks that actually meant something. It was hard to believe these two countries were neighbors but the infrastructure was vastly different.

Before coming to Rwanda we studied some of its history and specifically the genocides that have occurred. We focused mostly on the 1994 genocide but went back to the Belgian colonization and how it changed the Rwandan people. The Belgians were actually the ones who made the people put their ethnicity on their identification cards. Therefore it was easy to see who was Hutu and who was Tutsi. The Belgians were on the Hutu side because they had always been the poor, working people and had been under the Tutsi’s but the Hutu were also the majority. Tension spiked between these two groups gradually throughout the years and in 1994 finally came to a head. Extremist Hutu’s were attacking and murdering their Tutsi neighbors and family members. It was a 100 day genocide in which 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutu’s were murdered.

It was really hard to go to some of the memorial sites in Rwanda and see some of the videos. We went to one memorial site where 10,000 Tutsi’s had come to be kept safe. It was a church which could usually fit 1000 people comfortably for a service. However, word had reached the Tutsi’s that they would be safe in a church, the Hutu’s would never kill in a church. So 10,000 Tutsi’s squeezed themselves into this church, practically suffocating each other to fit another in so they would also be safe. However, the Hutu’s had spread false rumors that they would be safe there. All but two little children of the 10,000 people were killed in that church. There was also a church in Rwanda, that we didn’t visit, but where the priest welcomed all the Tutsi’s to come for a safe refuge. When they were all in he proceeded to lock the doors and windows and allowed some men to bulldoze the church.

There is a mass grave there now beneath the church we visited. We saw thousands of skeletal remains piled on top of each other. It was really hard to see, especially as college students who had only heard of this occurring in history class and who had never experienced any thing this tragic before. We heard testimonies from Tutsi survivors and their reactions to living in memory of the genocide. I can’t believe the faith they have and how they are able to forgive their neighbors and friends who killed their families. We met several orphans of the genocide who are now our age. Their stories are hard to hear and tragic yet it’s amazing at how strong they are. They had seen their family members die yet many had forgiven the murderers.

The Rwandan government put thousands of the Hutu perpetrators in prisons or what they call Reforming Centers. Rwanda also began a grass root court system called the Gacaca which is where court would be held in local villages and the people would decide the sentence and punishment of the perpetrators. It has been heralded a success by the majority of Rwanda but has also been said to be biased. We met with two lawyers of the Gacaca and it was really interesting to hear their jobs. Apparently the Gacaca will now be finished this coming December. They believe that all the Hutu extremists will have been tried and sentenced by the end of this year thus finally bringing an end to the courts of the 1994 genocide. The Gacaca courts have been a place of healing for many of the people. It is here that victims can bring their case and receive retribution from the men who had harmed them. It also gives the accused a chance to ask forgiveness and accept the punishment he believes he deserves. Most of the Hutus imprisoned after the genocide had been released sometime after the genocide. There were thousands of ex-prisoners returning to their villages where they had killed their neighbors and the survivors knew who had killed them. It was frightening to them to think of returning to their homes and having to face the survivors. The reconciliation process is incredible to see. There is counseling generally available for ex-prisoners and victims. Organizations are abundant in offering services to the people and in encouraging forgiveness.

Several of the people who told us their testimonies implored us to tell others of what we had seen here. Several countries still refuse to acknowledge that there was a genocide in Rwanda. The formation of the UN had promised that a genocide would never take place again after what happened in Nazi Germany. Thus, a “genocide” has never taken place after the holocaust. It’s all in what you call it. To the developed world (including the US), the Rwandan genocide was a “civil war”, not a genocide. Therefore the developed countries did not need to intervene because it wasn’t really a genocide. It’s strange to think that while the Rwandan genocide was going on, the OJ Simpson trials were occurring. The media was focused on OJ, and gave little attention to a small unknown country in the middle of Africa. If Rwanda had had oil, things would have been different. Rwanda would have meant something then (to the developed world).

There is so much more to write about Rwanda but I don’t have the room or the time. I hope I was able to give you a glimpse into my time in Rwanda. I still have so much to process and have left many things out. I’ve seen some crazy things.



Now, onto a happier topic…. Amanda. I’m sitting at an internet café in Kampala with Amanda at my side. It’s so strange that we are both here in Uganda and didn’t even plan on being in the same country. God definitely had a role in this.

Amanda is living at a convent in Gayaza which is a little town about 15 km north of the capital, Kampala. Though she’s only 15 km away from the city it can take from 25 minutes to an hour to get to her town depending on the traffic and roads. I came to Amanda on May 5th and will be here until Sunday, May 17th. We’ve done many things in preparation of moving her into her house. We’ve painted her rooms. Her bedroom is a really pretty green, her sitting room is a bright bright yellow orange (some could say Kraft Cheese color), and her kitchen is a bright blue. It’s been fun proving that Americans actually know how to paint and aren’t afraid of hard work. We are constantly asked if we know how to paint and find impressed Ugandans whenever we show them what we’ve done. One teacher, Patrick, asked us how we learned to put tape on the walls to keep the trim neat. We’ve also made quite a spectacle of ourselves when we went into town to get some lumber to build a book shelf. It must have been quite a sight to see to female “Mzungu’s” (white people) carrying lumber on their shoulders all the way to the convent. We were the talk of the town.

Amanda’s still not able to move in because of some safety things that have yet to be installed such as bars over her windows, doors that lock, and vents over the holes in the walls. I have pictures and will have to show you when I get home.

I’m here for about 5 more days and then I’m heading home. It’s going to be strange coming back to a developed country, driving on the right side of the road, and getting back to my old vocabulary and not saying “How has been your day” or “You look smart”.

I’ll see you soon.