A Goodbye/Love Letter to St. Pauls

My Dearest St. Pauls,

                I miss you already. It has only been three weeks since I drove away from you in a taxi with its bass blaring, yet I remember the walls of your guesthouse as if it was only yesterday that I saw you. While I do not miss the many crawling critters you also held under your roof, such as geckos staring down on me in the showers, scorpions wishing to stowaway in my bedroom, or cockroaches greeting me upon my arrival, there are many, many things I miss about you. I miss the people I met during your tea times and while sitting out at your picnic table or gazebo you so graciously let us use. I miss crawling up the hill many nights to use the wifi — or to curse when it wasn’t working. I miss sneaking over to the supermarche for early-morning mandazis or a mid-afternoon snack of samosas. I am surprised to discover that I miss being without a cellphone. I miss Mutzigs and moto gangs of muzungos, all trying to get to the same location, but all trying to save money and all trying to use English to get there.

I’ll be back!

                                                                                Ni ah’ ubutaha,

                                                                                                Marisa

PS:   As I mentioned in my first post, I brought a fair number of books with me to Rwanda. Most of the titles I brought because I thought I’d be able to especially relate to them during my trip. Because my studies focus on using art as advocacy and art as a means to bring about social change, and because I volunteered with Ishyo during the delegation, a cultural and art promotion organization whose mantra is “culture for everyone,” I thought I’d share a few excerpts that particularly stood out to me while I was there.

From I Go to the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poems in Defense of Global Human Rights

Bearing Witness, by Ellen Bass

When the long-fingered leaves of the sycamore

flutter in the wind, spiky

feed balls swinging, and a child throws his aqua

lunch bag over the school yard railing, the last thing,

the very last thing you want to think about

is what happens to children when they’re crushed

like grain in the worn mortar of the cruel.

We weep at tragedy, a baby sailing

through the windshield like a cabbage, a shoe.

The young remnants of war, arms sheared and eyeless,

they lie like eggs on the rescue center’s bare floor.

But we draw a line at the sadistic,

as if our yellow plastic tape would keep harm

confined. We don’t want to know

what generations of terror do to the young

who are fed like cloth

under the machine’s relentless needle.

In the paper, we’ll read about the ordinary neighbor

who chopped up boys; at the movies we pay

to shoot up that adrenaline rush—

and the spent aftermath, relief

like a long-awaited piss.

But face to face with the living prey,

we turn away, rev the motor, as though

we’ve seen a ghost — which, in a way, we have:

one who wanders the world,

tugging on sleeves, trying to find the road home.

And if we stop, all our fears

will come to pass. The knowledge of evil

will coat us like grease

from a long shift at the griddle. Our sweat

will smell like the sweat of the victims.

And this is why you do it—listen

at the outskirts of what our species

has accomplished, listen until the world is flat

again, and you are standing on its edge.

This is why you hold them in your arms, allowing

their snot to smear your skin, their sour

breath to mist your face. You listen

to slash the membrane that divides us, to plant

the hard shiny seed of yourself

in the common earth. You crank

open the rusty hinge of your heart

like an old beach umbrella. Because God

is not a flash of diamond light. God is

the kicked child, the child who rocks alone in the basement,

the one fucked so many times

she does not know her name, her mind

burning like a star.

Poem Wrapped Around a Quotation from Samantha Power, by Donna Brook

It is strenuous to mentally

encompass events,

how much harder

to act on them.

Sunday bather

lined the Jersey Shore as my stepson

cried for help from a riptide.

Alone my brother-in-law

dove and did not hesitate

to save him. Believed he could

and forthwith did, so becoming to us

a hero, no longer Sy,

but otherly brave.

Saying he did

what anyone would have done.

“To earn a death sentence, it was enough in the twentieth century to

be an Armenian, a Jew or a Tutsi. On September 11, it was enough

to be an American. In 1994, Rwanda, a country of just 8 million,

experienced the numerical equivalent of more than two World Trade

Center attacks every single day for 100 days….When the Tutsi cried

out…every country in the world turned away.”

But what would anyone

have done?

How demanding

to wrap the  mind

around the Earth

as if plucking a drowning

man from the sea

because one conceives

it is possible.

The Tutsi were killed

with machetes and sharpened

car parts, means

of mass destruction

just as water becomes

for those not snatched

from it in time.

From an essay called Iraqi Poetry Today, from the collection entitled A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society, 1997-2008, by Adrienne Rich

“Subjective, emotional experience everywhere lives and converses in poetry. Yet subjective emotions exist of necessity in dialogue with objective conditions. Poetry springs from a nexus of individual and shared experience, above all an experience of location—geophysical realities visible landscape, space marked out by religion, education and politics, poverty and wealth, gender and physiognomy, subordination and independence. Poetry both articulates new upshootings of particularity and grows out of a traditional compost. And it is often written in a desire to change the composition of the very soil from which it grows.”

“‘Whether or not a piece of literature is translated into English practically determines the artistic value of the work. At this early stage of globalization it is difficult to determine whether this phenomenon is enriching Arabic literary tradition…’

                In his introduction to Iraqi Poetry Today, Simawe observes that ‘whether we like it or not, English has become the world language, and thus has come to belong to people of all nations. Hundred of the poets who lie in exile have lost their audience and have begun to write either in English or to get the poetry translated into English or the language of their host country. The outcome of this hybrid poetics has become an important feature of western modernism.’”

This is my last post. Thanks for listening, thanks for reading.

At Kigali International Airport for the long journey home--farewell for now!

Knowledge, Advocacy, Action, Change

One of the questions I kept asking myself in Rwanda is: what is my purpose here? Of course, in many ways that question is obvious. I was in Kigali to learn: about human rights, conflict resolution, sharing cultures, and hopefully a lot about myself — as cheesy as that may sound. It was all about the knowledge I would gain and the experience, right? However, as the amount of time I spent in Rwanda increased, my perception of this trip broadened as well. I realized that my trip was not all about me. In other words, I would take away a great deal—more than I could imagine when I first boarded my plane at from O’Hare in Chicago to travel to Philadelphia. But what would I give?

                I was reminded several times throughout my trip that I had a responsibility to give—in addition to my responsibility to learn and absorb everything I possibly could as part of this delegation. I don’t simply mean the word give in a monetary sense. I mean to give my time, my energy, my voice and passion. I was reminded of this responsibility to give at Kiziba Refugee Camp, where simply listening to the stories of refugees wasn’t enough. I was reminded of this everyday as part of the cultural exchange aspect of the program, because I had a responsibility to teach others about myself and my own culture in addition to learning as much about Rwandan culture as I could. I was reminded of this at every memorial to the genocide my group visited; obviously observing and absorbing isn’t enough—sometimes it falls drastically short of what we owe our fellow human beings.

                As I moved through my month in Rwanda, our delegation started focusing on how we can turn this knowledge we gain into advocacy—and from advocacy into action, and that action into positive, sustainable change. One method we discussed to create change was political or governmental advocacy, which can then affect laws, social policies, etc. During the delegation, we visited various governmental organizations and ministries, such as the Ministry of Youth (currently the Ministry of Youth, Sports, and Culture), Parliament, the Norwegian People’s Aid, and our final week we visited both the Ministry of Security and the US Embassy, as well as met with a UNCHR representative for dinner one evening. All of these different organizations offered different perspectives on what action should be taken, and how it should be carried out.

                The Minister of Security himself was able to meet with our group and discuss the overlap of security and government in Rwanda. The Ministry of Security oversees the supervision of the Rwanda National Police, implementation of the law, and punishment for those who break the law. The Minister stated that “the law is our pillar.” Therefore, it is important to make sure that laws do not impede on human rights, and it is important to make sure that the system in which the law exists does not violate human rights as well.

                The main goals of the US Embassy were to promote relations between Rwanda and the US, and to monitor different human rights issues within Rwanda throughout the year. Many of the programs that the embassy assists with are small funding programs and enterprises, such as through a program called the Ambassador’s Self-Help Fund. One challenge that was pointed out to us on this visit is that there are so many different communities and issues where time and money can be directed, and it is very difficult to stretch a very limited amount of money very far.

                One of my favorite visits of the trip was when a small group of us had dinner with a UNHCR representative to discuss the current conditions of Kiziba Refugee Camp. She has worked in many different camps throughout Africa, and in the last couple years she has been working with the three refugee camps that are in Rwanda. She said that the most challenging aspect of her work is being in these different locations, on the ground and trying to do good, but being separated from her family. Coming to Rwanda was a dream-come-true for me, because it gave me the opportunity to be “on the ground;” it was the opportunity to see myself in a place far away from home and everyone I knew, and it gave me the opportunity to see if I could do this every day. I think I could—the only challenge for me is being away from my friends and family. It was comforting to hear this driven, passionate woman say it, too, and to know that it didn’t stop her from having her own life while following her dream of helping others.

                Sometimes knowledge doesn’t always lead to positive change or action. But it’s helpful to know that discipline, monetary means, and passion can go a long way in creating a positive and sustainable difference.

July 3rd and 4th: From Somber to Celebratory

Sunday, July 3^rd, marked the opening of our final full week in the program, and therefore, our final week in Rwanda. Having a few days off that Friday and Saturday had allowed us a chance to unwind and rest up, which helped prepare us for a pretty rough day that Sunday.

We went to Nyamata Memorial Center in Nyamata, a town that is around 20 miles outside of Kigali. It took us about 30 minutes to drive there. However, Jesse said that even as recently as the early 2000s, the roads to Nyamata were in poor enough condition that it would take two hours to reach the town from Kigali. As we rode the bus from Rwanda’s hilly, sloping capital city to the flatter, more rural marshland surrounding Nyamata, Jesse explained that even this change in scenery and geography is part of Nyamata’s history. Decades before the genocide in 1994, large numbers of Tutsis in Rwanda—but especially from the northern region of the country—were forced to live in this swampy, malaria-infested region; several hours but mere miles away from other people, communities, resources, etc. As I sat in this crowded, sweaty bus next to my friends, with my anti-malarial pills bouncing in my purse, it occurred to me how truly oppressive isolation from a community — and isolation from health — could be to a person. Once again, I can’t truly understand how such isolation would feel, and my easy access to both family and friends and healthcare have always been things that I have taken for granted. If the previous government that carried out the genocide really, truly believe the Tutsi were cockroaches, were less-human than themselves, then I think forcefully sending Tutsis into isolation such as this would be the first step in making outsiders, and the residents of Nyamata themselves feel as though they are somehow less-human as well.

Isolation can be a very powerful tool for oppression. Being able to drive to Nyamata from Kigali in 30 minutes made me feel as though real, tangible change has occurred in Rwanda since 1994.

The memorial’s appearance was unassuming and neat; it is a bright red brick building with green grass and colorful gardens on the surrounding land. Purple and white banners — colors associated with the ’94 genocide — hung around the building, but even these banners seemed to only add to the decorative aesthetic of the memorial, rather than evoke a somber mood.

However, the mood of our group quickly changed to somber upon entering the memorial. We were greeted by a guide who was tall, dressed professionally, and spoke in a quiet voice. I later read in my guidebook that she was one of two or three guides who worked there, who had all lost family at Nyamata church during the genocide. It made me wonder: how must she feel to work here? Can you imagine spending so much time at the site where some of your closest family and friends were murdered? Can you imagine reliving that time, that loss, that pain, every day of your life in such a physical way? I can’t.

Before we entered the church, our guide told us that 10,008 people crowded into the tiny space in April 1994 and were killed there by genocidaires. They came to this church because they believed they would be safe there. Now that the site has been converted into a memorial, over 40,000 victims are buried there, many of whom were killed in the marshy areas where they hid to protect themselves during the genocide. I only have one picture of Nyamata Memorial, because we were asked to only take pictures of the front entrance, out of respect for those who are buried there. I will just have to tell you about the rest of the visit.

Our view of Nyamata Memorial Site upon arriving.

We walked into the church, and it was impossible to envision 10,000 terrified people crammed into this space that maybe held several hundred comfortably. Sunlight shone into the worship space from holes in the walls and roof—caused by the blasts of bullets and grenades that were fired and launched upon the church. The simple wooden pews that stretched across the building were entirely covered by mounds of dusty, shredded clothing. This was the clothing of those who died there. It was impossible to discern one article of clothing from another, yet its presence almost gave life to the space, yet at the time it was a very tangible reminder of the enormous amount of human life that had been taken. The guide stopped us at the altar, where light pink blood stains marked the cloth that covered it. She then directed our gaze toward the ceiling, where black stains showed the time that had passed between our presence there and the genocide. Not just stains though, not just signs of age, she said; it was bloodstains, spattered across the ceiling with such regularity that I felt physically sick once these dark discolorations were identified for me.

The guide’s descriptions of what happened at this church made me realize something about the nature of the genocide, and about the trauma and pain that is a permanent effect of such atrocities. We use neutral words to describe what happened: killed, died, lost, victims. But the words our guide used didn’t leave open a peaceful interpretation of the events that happened; she used words like murdered, raped, mutilated, hacked, smashed, chased, tortured, and it made me realize that loved ones weren’t simply lost; they died horrible, slow, humiliating deaths—deaths that their survivors know were not peaceful, neutral, or inoffensive. How is it possible to move on when you understand the sort of violence and terror the genocide inflicted on your family?

Our guide invited us to go into the catacombs that are at Nyamata Memorial site. She told us that the holes and gashes in the skulls we would see were inflicted by machetes. We saw skulls, hip bones, thigh bones, various bones of victims killed in the church. These bones, once part of living, feeling human beings, seem so intimate — as though you shouldn’t be looking at them. And really, I know I shouldn’t be looking at them, because they should still be attached and part of living, feeling human beings.

On our way outside of the church, the guide pointed out the wall at the very back of the church, where babies were smashed against and killed. I will say that the visit was overwhelming and difficult, but these words are simplifiers; simplifiers that I use now that I am back in the States and because it is difficult to describe or even really understand how you feel when you see a wall used specifically to kill babies.

***

The next day, Monday, July 4^th, was spent celebrating in both the United States and Rwanda. While I imagined my family barbequing and watching fireworks back home, my delegation went to the National Stadium to celebrate Liberation Day! It marks the anniversary of July 4^th, 1994, when now-president Paul Kagame brought troops of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) into Rwanda and effectively stopped the genocide. Though I couldn’t understand a lot of what was said (speeches were in Kinyarwanda), we were able to see traditional dance, the police and military march, and even President Paul Kagame himself! It was a great chance to see patriotism that wasn’t just American; people are really proud to call themselves Rwandese. And why shouldn’t they be?

Traditional dancers strutting their stuff on Liberation Day!

The marching band plays, while some of Rwanda's military marches.

The much-adored President Paul Kagame himself!