Thoughts of Rwanda

Friends,

I just finished "A Thousand Hills, Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It" by Stephen Kinzer.  I found the following excerpt powerfully describes the feelings one experiences after spending some time in Rwanda.

"I had been in Rwanda several weeks.  I read dozens of books about the genocide and understood exactly how it unfolded.  But for anyone who becomes deeply engaged in Rwanda, there comes a moment when it's story overwhelms the intellect and the conscious mind.  Floods of grief and pain, sharpened immeasurably by the realization that an outsider's emotions can never approach the agony that enveloped and still envelops most Rwandans, becomes a torrent that, at least momentarily, drowns thought and reason.

It happened to me the morning after I visited Open Hands" (a ministry much like Ndengera) "I was sitting in the shade beside the swimming pool at the Mille Collines, transcribing my notes.  Suddenly, without warning, visions of children who surrounded me the day before, along with nightmarish images of what they and their families had suffered, began surging through me.  When I looked up, trying to regain my balance, I saw a young European women in a bikini sitting at the bar, sipping a drink with a paper umbrella in it.  That disoriented me even further.  I gasped for breath, began to quake, felt tongues of flame shooting through my body, and then collapsed in spasms of tears.  When I finally came back to my senses, I saw other guests staring at me with evident discomfort.

Can it be, I wondered, that they do not know what makes people cry in Rwanda?"

-Chris