April 2006

It’s only fair to share some of the more positive aspects of Rwanda. There are many. My Rwandan friend, Andrews is the director of Gacaca courts in a district near Kigali and invited me to visit him and attend a Gacaca meeting a couple of weeks ago. Nyamata is only 22 kilometers away but it takes one and a half hours over a violently rutted dirt road to get there. That isn’t including the time it takes waiting to fill the old worn mini bus till it is busting at the seems with sweating people. When the last person is jammed into the bus like the final crayon in a full box, we set out through Kigali to the south. The drive is through typical awe inspiring Rwandan countryside - large hairy hills, tiered green crops of coffee, sugar cane, bananas, and tea. Squat brown mud houses (just like at home!) with roofs of rusted corrugated tin and skewed wooden doors pepper the hills. Clouds gather in the sky above preparing for the heavy rains that now happen every day. People walk on the sides of the roads. Boys herd cows with horns so massive they would dash the confidence of any longhorn in Texas. They have to tilt there heads sideways to graze in between the banana trees. Young girls herd goats that eat the grass on the sides of the road. Women and children walk carrying yellow jugs to fill with water. Women wearing brightly colored cloth wraps and head scarves carry water, backpacks, and bundles of plants on their heads. They strap babies to their backs and carry bright rainbow umbrellas to protect them from the sun and rain. The men stop and greet each other shaking hands with the left hand touching the right arm, a show of respect.
I had been in Nyamata several times, but was still shy and incredibly self conscious at all the stares that I received as I waited for Andrews to arrive on his motorbike. I think he enjoys my company only slightly more than he enjoys riding around with a muzungu (gringo) on the back of his moto. We arrived at the Gacaca court an hour late and waited another hour for it to begin. A group of people sat beneath a large tree on the damp grass, but when I tried to join them they insisted that I have a chair. Gacaca literally means justice on the grass. It is a form of justice introduced in Rwanda to aid in prosecuting the large number of genocide perpetrators. The idea is that community members give testimony and help to decide whether a suspect is guilty or not and what his/her punishment should be. If you want to know more there are many books and scholarly articles on the subject and I strongly suggest you read one of them. On the day I was there they were not doing trials, but were electing new community judges. It was an interesting process by which three people were nominated against their will and were voted for by those present standing in line behind the one that they wanted to be a judge the most. The longest line won. How’s that for democracy.
I’ve had so many amazing opportunities to witness things that I have only read about. Gacaca courts, memorial ceremonies, processes of gathering and disseminating information surrounding genocide. I’ve met and interviewed the top people who work to preserve memory in both Cambodia and Rwanda. Just a few days ago I interviewed the Minister of Culture here and my appointment followed a meeting between the Minister and the President of Rwanda! I would ask a question and the Minister would reply, “I was just discussing this with the President an hour ago and . . .” That was pretty cool and the interview went well so I felt really good afterwards. I have learnt so much about politics and the great power behind networking. Rwanda is all about networking. When I discuss my project with someone they usually suggest someone else that I should talk to. You could map the entire NGO and researcher community here and come out with a complicated web of connections and potential sources of information.
Speaking of networking I recently ran into a fellow Watson fellow here in Rwanda and she and I attended one of the memorial ceremonies together. Next week we are going to see the mountain gorillas (Dad, I’ll take lots of pictures!!) together. She is doing a project on coffee cooperatives so we talk about that quite a bit as well (a nice break from genocide). In two weeks I will be saying murabeho to Rwanda and heading off to Kenya through Uganda. I am looking forward to exploring parts of Kenya and to taking a short vacation from my project before I leave for Poland to visit some concentration camps there. I love you all and hope that life is good.
Amelia