Yesterday was the first official day of our delegation! On Saturday we waited for the final people in our group to arrive, fought off jetlag, and walked around Kigali for a couple hours. We ate breakfast at Bourbon —which is a popular local café. As you may be able to imagine I was thrilled to have my coffee addiction satiated so quickly. I got an iced americano, and it was delicious! It was also very strong. I look forward to going there again.
Our walking tour was very eye-opening. Kigali just seems like such a warm, vibrant place. It was great to venture through the streets with “Primus” beer and “Tigo” cell phone company ads plastered everywhere. Traffic is a little crazy and taxi “motos” are constantly flying past or trying to get you to go for a ride. Some things are a little tough, though. Children will occasionally come up and walk with you, grab your hand, or talk to you, trying to get you to give them money. Not that there aren’t homeless people in the US, or Iowa City, or Cedar Rapids, of course — but they are never quite presented to you in this disarming way. We have been advised not to give these children anything, but it is difficult to know what to say at the same time. It is a little heartbreaking.
Something else I noticed on our walking tour, which is also a little disarming, is that my awareness of myself has been greatly heightened in Kigali. Since this is my first international trip, I have never been so conscious of my outsider-status based purely on the way I look. My role as a foreigner is so obvious, it made me uncomfortable at times, especially when our group of 15 or so drew attention so easily…
…Which brings me to the topic of: identity. We talked about it yesterday — mainly we discussed how identity relates to privilege, whether identity is internally or externally cultivated, and how it is a fairly fluid concept. This discussion made me glad I brought Adrienne Rich to read! We also discussed how our own sense or concept of identities might affect this experience for us. It was very interesting to hear everyone’s different perspectives, and I felt my understanding of what identity is being challenged.
Yesterday we also went to the Genocide Memorial of Belgian Soldiers at Camp Kigali. This memorial honors the memory of ten Belgian Blue Berets who were tortured and killed on the first day of the genocide, April 7th 1994. Their job was to protect the Rwandan Prime Minister at the time, Agatha Uwilingimana. Although the facts of this story are fairly easy to digest, seeing the actual memorial and place where these men were killed was not. In the outside garden area of the memorial, ten stone pillars stood to represent each of the soldiers. Notches were cut out of the pillars, and each notch represented a year of each mans’ life. For some reason, this very physical, tangible representation of life unrealized made these ten soldiers’ stories more real to me. Bullet holes loudly announced themselves as scars on the exterior of the building that houses the rest of the memorial. These large marks reminded us that the memorial itself holds these men’s history as well.
On a blackboard in the building, the victims’ families had written messages to their lost loved ones. One message, directed at Romeo Dallaire, read in French: Do you have eyes? When someone in the delegation who was impressively fluid in French translated this for us, it caused me to pause. Isn’t this question what human rights is all about? Can you see what is happening around you? Can you identify injustices and violence against fellow human beings, and better yet, can you do anything to change this? Do you have eyes is a question that was relevant to the entire international community in 1994 as we stood by and allowed this mass atrocity to happen; we allowed it to continue. Because really, if — as individuals, societies, nations and communities — we possess the power to see, then why are human rights even an issue?
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On a lighter note, after this visit to Camp Kigali we stopped by EjoHeza in Gikondo. EjoHeza is a cooperative of women, many affected by HIV and/or the 1994 genocide, who sew bags and other goods in order to make a living. Shopping for social justice?! Need I say MORE! Needless to say, the mostly-women-inhabited delegation went a little crazy buying bags for friends and family back home.
That is all I will say for now. Today we met the Rwandan members of the delegation!
Muramukelo!
Marisa
