The Rains Down in Africa

Hey all…quick post today because I’m exhausted. Class today was really interesting. Our morning class was again about international involvement and intervention in genocide and our afternoon class was about the consequences of the 1994 genocide. Not surprisingly, the genocide had a huge impact on every aspect of life in Rwanda and even 15 years later many of these consequences are still so visible.

After class, we visited AVEGA, a genocide widows support group located in Kigali. The group, founded in 1995 by fifty widows, provides health care, counseling, and financial and emotional support to women and children who literally lost everything during the genocide. After our meetings with two of the directors, we went to the organization’s store where they sell crafts made by the widows. All of the profits go back into the organization so I ended up buying a traditional Rwandan basket (you better like it mom!).

We then jumped back onto our big red bus (a.k.a. the “Love Bus”) and drove back to our guesthouse to the musical stylings of Beyonce, R. Kelly, and Akon. The windows were open (even though it was poring rain), we were all singing, and I'm convinced that all of Kigali was laughing at us. Back at the guesthouse we had a couple of meetings about our service placements that begin tomorrow. I’ll be heading over to a secondary school where I will help teach some of the teachers English. Rwanda has recently decided to switch all classroom instruction into English and many of the teachers here need a crash course in some basic English….hopefully we’ll be able to help them out! I’m nervous but really excited to have the opportunity to make a little bit of a difference.

So, everything in Kigali is still going well! And, on a completely unrelated note, I’m still so amazed at how friendly, accommodating, and happy the people here are. By all accounts, Rwandans have every right to be cynical and bitter….yet they aren’t. Rwandans refuse to be defined by the genocide. They won’t let their past dictate their future. We all definitely have something to learn from these people. It actually reminds me of my favorite quote from The Perks of Being A Wall Flower; “So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”

Night,
-Luke