PS. I've been here 3 weeks and I have had zero mosquito bites. That's got to be a record.
And I'm sure I just cursed it.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Walls of a Church should not have Bullet Holes
I have no feeling right now. I allowed the first genocide memorial to affect me. I allowed myself to feel the sadness (for the most part). But we went to two more today and while I took in the immensity of the sites, the bones at the sites and the clothing remains at the sites, I was unable to feel any emotion beside pure awe. The walls went up. I have no emotion to write about so I'll just put up some pictures I took. Feel for yourself.
A church's pews should have people in them. Not the clothes that the victims wore on the day of their death...
The Sacristy of a church should not be filled with stacks and stacks of bones.
Skulls should not have weapons left
or hammer holes in them.
The Virgin Mary should look over joyous people, not a massacre.
An alter should have gifts, not weapons.
No Church should ever look like this one.
(I spent about an hour trying to get the layout of the pictures right but no such luck. Blogger is not user friendly. Sorry).
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Some Things I've Discovered
- Cars and motorcycles will not slow down if you are crossing the road. In fact, they will probably speed up.
- If someone calls "sista sista" they are neither imitating the Disney tv show nor confusing you with one of their family members.
- You're paying too much if lunch costs you more than 2,000 francs ($3.57).
- If someone at the market says they will give you a good price for an item - you're still going to pay the mzungu price.
- Nobody cares about the NFL.
- My feet will never again be clean.
- Aerobics class will have more men than women in attendence.
- You never know when you'll be walking down the street and you'll spot a man peeing in the corner.
- The locals will laugh when you attempt to speak their language.
- I am not cut out to have 15 children because the amount of dishes to do are outrageous!!
- Many bathrooms will not have toilet paper (bring your own).
- African Tea is amazing.
- Pineapple here is a million times better than pineapple at home!
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Not always fun. But necessary.
I am finding it impossible to comprehend that one human being has the psychological capacity to kill another human. I know that there are instances of murder (even mass murder) everywhere but it's easy to blame the random instances on insanity or pure hatred for another person. But how is it possible to be human and take the lives of so many innocent people in separate occasions? People that were your neighbors last week? How could you possibly kill the children that your kids played with? How does this happen?
We went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial yesterday. There are almost 300,000 people buried in mass graves on this rather small plot of land. 300,000. I can't comprehend that many lives and it's only 30% of those who died. Each one brutally murdered. It wasn't a bomb that wiped them all out. Each one had its own killer and story.
The thing that got me the most was the children's memorial. I can understand that children are murdered. It happens But we look at those murders as ironic cases of insanity. But how were so many people able to do that? To look at a small child and then end their lives. And not just kill them quickly, but make them suffer before they finally died of loss of blood or some other cruel end.
They had a whole area for the children that died. Including this child one below. But the ones that got me most were this 7 year old who's last words were "mom where should I run?" and another who was killed by being stabbed in the eyes and then head. First off, imagine the human beings that could do that to each of them. And second, think about the mothers who had to helplessly watch before facing their own death.
Everyone says we're supposed to "process" experiences like this. But I'm not even sure how you process something like that. I'm not completely sure that you can.
On another note, the sketchy tickets that we bought for the football (soccer) game worked. We lucked into front row seats at about the 45 yard line. Nice, I know. Rwanda lost 1-0 to Egypt but it was an amazing experience. I think everyone should go to an international football (soccer - for you Americans) game at least once in their lives.
We went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial yesterday. There are almost 300,000 people buried in mass graves on this rather small plot of land. 300,000. I can't comprehend that many lives and it's only 30% of those who died. Each one brutally murdered. It wasn't a bomb that wiped them all out. Each one had its own killer and story.
The thing that got me the most was the children's memorial. I can understand that children are murdered. It happens But we look at those murders as ironic cases of insanity. But how were so many people able to do that? To look at a small child and then end their lives. And not just kill them quickly, but make them suffer before they finally died of loss of blood or some other cruel end.
They had a whole area for the children that died. Including this child one below. But the ones that got me most were this 7 year old who's last words were "mom where should I run?" and another who was killed by being stabbed in the eyes and then head. First off, imagine the human beings that could do that to each of them. And second, think about the mothers who had to helplessly watch before facing their own death.
Everyone says we're supposed to "process" experiences like this. But I'm not even sure how you process something like that. I'm not completely sure that you can.
On another note, the sketchy tickets that we bought for the football (soccer) game worked. We lucked into front row seats at about the 45 yard line. Nice, I know. Rwanda lost 1-0 to Egypt but it was an amazing experience. I think everyone should go to an international football (soccer - for you Americans) game at least once in their lives.
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