The streets of Gisenyi, Uganda are empty under a layer of settled white dust. We are walking up through the village from the beach back to our hostel in a Presbyterian church up the hill. Those few that we see on the street follow us with a menacing air and sharp laughs at our backs - like school bullies laughing weakly in the face of this sad, sad day. The road winding down for one more mile to Goma, Congo is empty and we cross it easily. Not even a sound from the churches, from the fruit stands or shop windows. This border town is as dead as Rwanda was, that 17 years ago.
Today is the last day of Rwanda’s annual week of mourning. The last day of the year to publicly lay bare what, and who, has been cut down in cold blood among these beautiful banana trees. The pure silence of the place tells its story as the hub for Hutu extremists in 1994 from which seismic waves of hatred split the whole of Rwanda. It is a story that continues today to cut its sour course just one mile from here in neighboring Congo. Somehow we are surprised at how peaceful and serene that place appears to us now, just down shore from us along Lake Kivu. Magestic mountains and untouched green shadows are hiding a never ending jungle of riotous bloodletting. But here in Rwanda, we are in its wake. One that is still quite warm and trembling almost two decades later.
Shaken slightly by the strange mixture of guarded grief and menace we meet in the eyes of almost everyone left in town, we make our way anxiously onto the first bus to Kigali that finally peels away at 2pm. Our driver’s reflection in the rearview shows one eye hooded by a brow-to-chin scar, no doubt from the blunt blade of a machete. Outside, the most breathtaking shelves of fertile green hills rise at graceful angles and catch the sun perfectly like the edges of an emerald. On the road, we are stopped at a police checkpoint and wait idling for some 20 minutes to let hoardes of villagers pass on the road back into town. This must be where all of Gisenyi was this morning. A gorgeous pallette they are, clothed in their finest multi-colored cloths, their heads wrapped and draped in blazing colors, their finest clothes pressed and neat. Hand in hand, walking in clumps and in lines in the hot sun back, we watch them pass. At last our driver pulls out into them like a truck into a heard of cattle and they regard us with smoldering solemn gazes. Down the highway we wind through them for miles until at last we see their source up ahead. A small stage in the middle of a field with hundreds of them at its feet listening. Someone, a woman, is presenting. The traditional genocide-commemorating purple ribbons flutter around her and the rich green hills give her a soft and forgiving backdrop. We flurry past the scene and move on through the waves of villagers on their way into the fields in the opposite direction. In a few miles we meet another long line of recessors, trailing from the same scene in another village.
Later we are told that this is called Gacaca - a traditional conflict resolution and trauma recovery system that has been adapted post-genocide. This is where the local victims and their families confront the purpatrators, negotiate accountability and hold dialogue for healing. In this way, the people of Rwanda are attempting to pave each day forward. And for many, that means living in their villages alongside neighbors who hacked, sliced, tortured and raped their loved ones - or living with the memory of having done those things. It’s a feat that to us seems almost impossible - especially for those left behind who bear the images, the fear, the HIV, the disillusion and the scars of those 100 days. But on these village roads it is clear, that everyone in this entire country, was a victim of something much larger.
I don’t want to spend time discussing the details of the horrors that we all know happened here - those blind and bloody stories of the utmost suffering and betrayal are already being told in more important places by more important people. But I thought it merited a post anyway, if only as another reminder for my day to day life. There are those, like myself before I came to Africa, who find it much easier to feel removed from something like this. Who attribute the human wreckage and sociopathic cruelty that swept this previously peaceful country to culture, socioeconomic factors, or under-education. These assumptions can be true but only in part. It often seems to us that the only way to possibly explain such a merciless hand to head wave of mass murder is some--very distant--kind of crazy, the kind that doesn’t apply to us in our high heels on our therapists couches or in our lawn chairs sipping beer in suburban circles. But this is just sadly mistaken. It is a scientifically psychological fact that every human brain is capable of manipulation and morally altered behavior out of perceived self protection, given the right circumstances. The Stanford Prison study is one example that brought the teeth of all humanity to light. Even yours. We are our primal selves first underneath our educated sophisticated ones and our cognitive processes are wired to preserve our survival. In complete and utter fear, humans go blind - like looking straight into the sun. So very very blind.
Why do I seem to digress? Not to dwell on this tragedy, among the others that have bubbled and fizzled and those that continue to ripple through humans on earth. Only to remind myself of the ways in which I act out, in tiny teaspoon measures, that same sentiment of anger, judgment and worst of all, fear. Its amazing, in my every day squabbles with those I don’t get along with, how much education, mental control and cognitive effort it takes to bury the hatchet under a mountain of pride. It doesn’t matter much how big or how small the misunderstanding. The degree of personal insult. Or even the result of the little conflicts that dot my relatively peaceful life. It does matter how I mentally digest them. And how easy they can be to dismantle with just a little bit of perspective.
Kigali today is a gorgeous city, smooth, friendly, clean and self respecting. Regardless of socioeconomic status, the people here dress, walk and interact with a sense of pride and presentation. They have learned possibly the hardest lesson there is to learn on earth. And, individually, they are deciding if and how to forgive - forgive their neighbors, forgive themselves, forgive the international community, forgive their country. And it is a country that is today as beautiful and fertile as ever - arguably one of the most enlightened and progressive countries in Africa. Seemingly, however deep the scars, there is a national commitment to both self improvement, learning, education and memory. A large sector of the population is living with unimaginable trauma that would stop anyone dead in their tracks, unable to continue living alongside that repulsive human reality. And yet… and yet. The country at large refuses to be defined by what happened here. There is a very bright future on the horizon, however long in coming it might be.
Hotel Rwanda, or Hotel des Milles Collines as it is actually called, stands up the hill from where we are staying. It has been transformed into a five star, clean as a whistle, first class hotel. The glittering swimming pool overlooking the city lights is now serene and without a ripple, the same one that refugees in the hotel once drank from to keep from dying. During the day, the scavenger birds still circle above it. As we drank a cocktail in the outdoor garden, it was clear that it remembers. And so will I my learnings here, in so many small ways.
In the Kigali genocide memorial, there is a quote on the wall alongside stories of those who went against the grain to protect and shelter people, neighbors or strangers, from the slaughter. It reads: “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire”.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Night Crossing
The lights have dimmed. The night has been on us for hours now. Midnight is near. We are laying on our bags near a trash dump in a dark driveway in Kampala, Uganda. Lines of shadows, silhouetted by shallow yellow light, lounge around us, waiting. Pop music pounds through the cement wall that separates the driveway/”bus station” from the bar next door. Rats chase each other behind me in a race to snatch the scraps from the nearby candlelit chapati stand. Diesel fogs the city and curdles in my nose as this Saturday night throws itself at my feet on my way out of town. I pretend I am not white and try to blend in with the shadows. It works only in my mind. But in the cover of darkness and the shadow of a Nairobi bound bus, I am just like the luggage around me - tired and bored and headed for the border on a night bus down that long lost highway. I am long and lost. That’s for sure.
After a short but silent frenzy and a mad rush to board, Nairobi pulls into traffic and disappears while Usher fills the space it leaves behind. New shadows shuffle into place along the cement walls. That rotten egg yellow light from a single bulb runs from its cracked shell somewhere in the boarded up structure behind the lot.
When our bus pulls up, we almost miss it even though it is an hour and a half late. There is no announcement or much sound at all. We only recognize it by the masses that throng at its door as soon as it pulls into our lair. Scott and I are shuffled away in the very back row in a corner as usual but glad we are on the bus, out of sight and relieved to be in darkness. Squeezed in next to four locals with unwieldy knees, it looks to be a long trip. But we are on and bound for Kigali tonight. The bus swings out into a hoard of oncoming boda boda motorcycles --who swerve like court servants on the dusty road out of its way - and rumbles on into the night.
Kampala’s dusty lights have long faded from view. The grumble of the engine whines on toward early morning. The road turns from swervy and jumpy to completely unpaved and potholed. In the back row its like riding a stallion bareback except with very little to hold on to. The bus is careening into turns and the wheels loose their grip on the road for a breathless few seconds each time. Hours pass. Less and less light makes it through the windows. The whole dark bus somehow finds` sleep circa 3am, and we are four wheeling our way through the Ugandan countryside. At times our whole bodies are propelled into the air and the sufferings of the bus wheels haunt our every dream. But trusty as an old pack horse, this old dog is still a’runnin and a-rumblin on its night rounds through Southern Uganda. A few stars somehow force their light through the dust covered windows. Otherwise the night is dark and holding its breath. The rich banana leaves and smooth green grasslands have dropped from the canvas outside under broad strokes of black paint. The occasional sleepy ghost town opens one eye to us as we pass, most often in the form of a single saloon light with lounging shadows drooping from its lashes. And the road? Bump, crash, launch!, rumble rumble, breaks screaming, rumble, rumble. The rumble rumbles anesthetize and rock you into sleep before the next !launch! Every time you wake, you wonder what time it is and how you are not dead yet. Are we at the border yet. Has the bus lost a wheel yet. Rumble rumble launch! is the answer.
Just before dawn we screech to a halt at the border. Not a word is said but the bus empties into the chill of a milky early morning. Nearly everything is completed in silence - even an attempted scam to get my passport information by some guy with earphones in pretending to be border authority. After resigning ourselves from Uganda at a desk that looks like the front desk of a motel 6 off the highway at 4am, we walk the long, guarded corridor between countries, crowned by the steeples of cement towers and slinkys of barbed wire. The sun has yet to lift the cold mist from the borderlands and we walk toward a wet, clouded nothing we imagine to be Rwanda. Official entry into the most beautiful, fresh faced country we had seen yet awaits us. So do the stories of what apocalypse happened here 17 years ago, along with the people who are trying hard to move out from underneath them.
Stiff barricades and barbed wire loom up from the icy mist in rows as we pass. Shadowy guards with AK 47s dot the fog like gargoyles along the roof of a cathedral. Anxiously we hurry toward customs as the sun sleeps that last hour before dawn, two shadows scurrying along a wall of morning mist. A mist so thick it strips you of your identity, your country, your senses. And this is how, in between the borders, we find the importance of belonging. Suspended in the sky we are, seeing that the sky has fallen on us during the night. But the clouds are just minutes from rising.
After a short but silent frenzy and a mad rush to board, Nairobi pulls into traffic and disappears while Usher fills the space it leaves behind. New shadows shuffle into place along the cement walls. That rotten egg yellow light from a single bulb runs from its cracked shell somewhere in the boarded up structure behind the lot.
When our bus pulls up, we almost miss it even though it is an hour and a half late. There is no announcement or much sound at all. We only recognize it by the masses that throng at its door as soon as it pulls into our lair. Scott and I are shuffled away in the very back row in a corner as usual but glad we are on the bus, out of sight and relieved to be in darkness. Squeezed in next to four locals with unwieldy knees, it looks to be a long trip. But we are on and bound for Kigali tonight. The bus swings out into a hoard of oncoming boda boda motorcycles --who swerve like court servants on the dusty road out of its way - and rumbles on into the night.
Kampala’s dusty lights have long faded from view. The grumble of the engine whines on toward early morning. The road turns from swervy and jumpy to completely unpaved and potholed. In the back row its like riding a stallion bareback except with very little to hold on to. The bus is careening into turns and the wheels loose their grip on the road for a breathless few seconds each time. Hours pass. Less and less light makes it through the windows. The whole dark bus somehow finds` sleep circa 3am, and we are four wheeling our way through the Ugandan countryside. At times our whole bodies are propelled into the air and the sufferings of the bus wheels haunt our every dream. But trusty as an old pack horse, this old dog is still a’runnin and a-rumblin on its night rounds through Southern Uganda. A few stars somehow force their light through the dust covered windows. Otherwise the night is dark and holding its breath. The rich banana leaves and smooth green grasslands have dropped from the canvas outside under broad strokes of black paint. The occasional sleepy ghost town opens one eye to us as we pass, most often in the form of a single saloon light with lounging shadows drooping from its lashes. And the road? Bump, crash, launch!, rumble rumble, breaks screaming, rumble, rumble. The rumble rumbles anesthetize and rock you into sleep before the next !launch! Every time you wake, you wonder what time it is and how you are not dead yet. Are we at the border yet. Has the bus lost a wheel yet. Rumble rumble launch! is the answer.
Just before dawn we screech to a halt at the border. Not a word is said but the bus empties into the chill of a milky early morning. Nearly everything is completed in silence - even an attempted scam to get my passport information by some guy with earphones in pretending to be border authority. After resigning ourselves from Uganda at a desk that looks like the front desk of a motel 6 off the highway at 4am, we walk the long, guarded corridor between countries, crowned by the steeples of cement towers and slinkys of barbed wire. The sun has yet to lift the cold mist from the borderlands and we walk toward a wet, clouded nothing we imagine to be Rwanda. Official entry into the most beautiful, fresh faced country we had seen yet awaits us. So do the stories of what apocalypse happened here 17 years ago, along with the people who are trying hard to move out from underneath them.
Stiff barricades and barbed wire loom up from the icy mist in rows as we pass. Shadowy guards with AK 47s dot the fog like gargoyles along the roof of a cathedral. Anxiously we hurry toward customs as the sun sleeps that last hour before dawn, two shadows scurrying along a wall of morning mist. A mist so thick it strips you of your identity, your country, your senses. And this is how, in between the borders, we find the importance of belonging. Suspended in the sky we are, seeing that the sky has fallen on us during the night. But the clouds are just minutes from rising.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
White Wedding
“Madam!” the security guard called after me and I got a little leap in my heart. I probably wasn’t supposed to be in here. Hopefully I could just leave and there would be no trouble. I turned to him as he approached in a thick navy uniform. “Yes?” I said. “Where do you stay?” he asked. “Just down the way there” I responded with a quiver in my voice. “I am a volunteer.” He smiled and took my hand, then shook my hand warmly. I was only a little taken back at the change. “You see, Madam. I want to marry white person. White woman.” He said still smiling with questioning eyes and a soft voice. Like a teenager in a designer shoe store. “I want to, Madam. Can you give help with this one?” He was perhaps the 15th person in Africa I had met who had expressed this sentiment. Fear evaporated and my heart sunk. Usually, I would just nod and laugh quietly, say I was married and go on my way. Usually. But today, I couldn’t do it. Here was this nice looking, hard working, aspiring young guy with big sincere eyes wanting a white wife. Any white wife. And why? Because he believed she would be rich? Because it would give him street status? Because for him, black was just not good enough? His own culture, so much more rich and real and awake and alive than he would ever know, was the soft ruddy red dirt in between his toes waiting to be paved - so it could bake and crumble in the sun. And on it he trod unthinkingly as he trotted up to me. Judging from the pleading hope in his eyes, he would have probably married me on the spot. I could have been a spy or sociopath, but I had the skin to get in and that was a risk he was willing to take. T sell out of his own world and into what he thought ours could offer him. His with all of its struggle and strife. Ours with all of its lies and loneliness. Colonialism bore its ugly teeth out from behind his boyish smile.
“No! No you don’t want a white wife!” I cried desperately. “White people are not always good! Please believe me. You are African, be proud. African women are so beautiful, why not an African woman for you, sir?” He looked back at me without changing his expression, like a four-year old who I just told in an overexcited voice to write a term paper on Apartheid. “No, Madam, this I will do, I will marry white person. See? I need white wife for me. Can I give you my contact? And you can help me with this madam?”
Sigh. With a sick heart, I defaulted as usual and told him I was late to meet my husband but if I met any other white women I would let him know. Which of course I wouldn’t. He thanked me with a big smile and said yes, we would talk later. Which we wouldn’t. And as I walked along the winding red ribbon of the path that laced together a wild fabric of silky green trees, I trailed a little bit of hope behind me in the dust.
“No! No you don’t want a white wife!” I cried desperately. “White people are not always good! Please believe me. You are African, be proud. African women are so beautiful, why not an African woman for you, sir?” He looked back at me without changing his expression, like a four-year old who I just told in an overexcited voice to write a term paper on Apartheid. “No, Madam, this I will do, I will marry white person. See? I need white wife for me. Can I give you my contact? And you can help me with this madam?”
Sigh. With a sick heart, I defaulted as usual and told him I was late to meet my husband but if I met any other white women I would let him know. Which of course I wouldn’t. He thanked me with a big smile and said yes, we would talk later. Which we wouldn’t. And as I walked along the winding red ribbon of the path that laced together a wild fabric of silky green trees, I trailed a little bit of hope behind me in the dust.
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