Friday - back to Gisimba

As I mentioned in earlier post, we went back to Gisimba Orphanage, and while I can’t tell you all the details of the meeting with another survivor (out of respect for his privacy), I can tell you that his story of survival is one of the most compelling and heroic tales I’ve heard this week.
Nearly 16 years after the genocide, he now tells his story and sees it as a healing process. To give you an idea of the absurdity of this racism which led to the 1994 genocide, his older brother had to hide him in the roof of the orphanage for a month because "brother 1" had “Tutsi” features while his brother looked more like a Hutu (it was the Hutus that were killing the Tutsis in 1994). According to the Belgians, who ruled this small country for many years, the Tutsi were superior and had “European” features while the Hutus had rounder features and were inferior – for the record, none of these “features” they measured had any validity and they often mistakenly placed Hutus with the Tutsi tribe, and vice versa, solely based on the shape and size of their nose and foreheads, etc.

"Brother 1" is extremely humble and doesn’t see himself as a hero, and in his words “what could we do, we had to help them.”

As we were speaking with "brother 1" one of the survivors that sought refuge at Gisimba joined us and recounted the story of her maid/friend being killed in front of her, her husband’s murder and her escape with her one year old son. Fortunately, they made it to Gisimba and survived. Her son, now 15, is going to school and likes to study science and technology. She smiles as she tells the story but you can see the pain in her eyes and that she is struggling to hold back her tears. Later, we were told that while she was hiding at Gisimba she lost so much weight that she looked and acted like a child and was able to blend in with the other children, which was the only thing that saved her from being killed.

There is a lot of healing that still needs to take place in Rwanda and it’s interesting that many people will tell their stories about what personally happened to them in 1994, but none will show emotion.
After hearing stories like this it’s difficult to switch your brain and go into “work mode,” but it’s important to remember that most people, at least the ones we’ve met, are trying to create a new Rwanda, a Rwanda that is safe, that is prosperous, and that has learned from it’s past and not forgotten, but that is moving forward.

The remainder of the day was spent meeting with business owners – one Elizabeth and I wished we had met earlier - someone who could provide us with a virtual office!