Mourning and Hope: April/May Froehlich Newsletter

Posted May. 25th, 2007

Everyone awoke to the chilling news that the President was dead, his plane shot out of the sky... Who did it? People ran to find their family members. “What would happen now?” they all wondered. In the streets of Kicukiro, it was immediately clear that Tutsis and moderate Hutus were in great danger. Groups of interahamwe (the local militias who executed the genocide) wove drunkenly around a handful of road blocks dotting the way between Sonatube, Kicukiro Centre, and the Kagarama neighborhood beyond (where we now live). Tutsi families made their way quietly through the small patches of forest toward the technical school across the road from the main market at Kicukiro center. There they knew they would be safe, because the spot was guarded by the “blue-helmets”, UN soldiers.

By the evening of the 7th April (First day of the 100-day genocide, and now the first day of the week of mourning), most of the Tutsis of the neighborhood were camped out in and around the one of the large open classrooms of the school. They sat outside around small fires and pots of boiling potatoes and discussed who was behind the assassination? Surely Tutsis would be blamed. What would happen to them now? There were killers everywhere. They had heard terrible rumors of Tutsis killed by the hundreds in other parts of the city already. But surely they were safe here under UN guard. The tortured talk went on another day, and another, until the fifth day, April 11th.

All of a sudden the UN soldiers started climbing into their UN jeeps. The crowd swarmed toward them. What were they doing? Were they leaving? Didn't they know what would happen? The soldiers refused to reply or make eye contact. Some were close to tears as they resolutely followed orders, knowing what it would mean for these desperate people under their protection. As soon as they were all on board, they drove away. Everyone knew they were not coming back. Some people became hysterical, others walked resolutely back into the forest. Most wandered aimlessly back toward the classroom; elders gathered to discuss in low frightened voices what they should do now.

It was no more than an hour until the killers arrived. They surrounded the crowd and ordered them to their feet. They pushed them forward with the blunt edges of their machetes. They marched the crowd up the hill. It was a long walk as the killers jeered and insulted them, and said they were taking them to a place where they would crucify them just like Jesus. They passed the Friends Church and then the path that leads up the hill to where Peace House now stands. They continued the long walk up hill under the hot sun. When they arrived at the top of the hill in Nyanza, more killers were waiting. The slaughter began. It took many hours to finish the labor of killing almost 3000 people with machetes.

Based on the stories my neighbors have told, the events in our neighborhood during the bloody first days of the genocide went something like that. On April 11, I accompanied a young woman, a survivor, who works at Friends Peace House to participate in a memorial walk up to Nyanza. Participants gathered at the technical school and my colleague pointed out the classroom where she had taken refuge along with members of her family and friends—where they had all gathered in hopes that they would find safety behind UN guard. She had been there, but had escaped before the death march to Nyanza. She had survived, but most of her family had not. In the schoolyard where we gathered to begin the walk, I also found another friend, one of the shopkeepers in our neighborhood who I visit regularly. I knew she had lived in Burundi at the time of the genocide. She had not lived through the days of the genocide, but her husband, the father of her first daughter, had died as an FPR soldier during the war.

The walk solemnly began. I could feel the memories of the people surrounding me, heavy and haunting. And yet, I knew I could not begin to imagine. We bore purple banners during the long walk to the top of the hill. we found seats, and waited as hundreds of other neighborhood residents gathered to remember that dark day. A large bonfire roared at the center of the gathering, because this is the custom during the week of mourning. In Rwanda whenever anyone dies, family and friends, often even the entire neighborhood, gather at the home of the deceased to accompany the family day and night for one week. Especially the first and last night, it is a very important gesture of solidarity to stay awake with the mourner all night. So the same custom happens on a national level during the Week of Mourning every April in Rwanda.

During the memorial service at Nyanza, as night began to fall, local leaders spoke to a crowd of at least several thousand. Pastors prayed. A keynote address presented the history of the genocide at length, detailing the failure of the international community in protecting the Tutsis, particularly the failure of the UN who could have stayed and protected those people who were buried on this hill.

Then a couple of hours into the memorial service, a young woman began to share her testimony. She was a child here on this hill during the massacre. She watched here entire family killed. When she got to the part where she began to describe sitting by her father's decomposing corpse, she could not go on... At this point, we could hear sudden shrieks and wailing in different parts of the crowd, people screaming and reliving their memories. Those around them would gather and attempt to comfort, or pick up the person and carry them off to the edge of the field. Red cross workers were standing by. And ambulances arrived periodically to take those who were having the worst post-traumatic symptoms. I remember most of all, one woman who kept screaming over and over again, “Not in the toilet, not in the toilet! Don't put her in the toilet. Not in the toilet!” She, along with many others, was in a full-fledged flashback as people ushered her away from the gathering. People in the crowd, overwhelmingly women, continued to have similar episodes throughout the evening.

For me, it was heart-wrenching, confusing, and surprising. This was the first time I had attended a public memorial service in Rwanda. Though I am very familiar with the symptoms of trauma as a therapist, here in Rwanda, people do not express emotion often. Children learn from a young age not to express emotion. Families are generally not openly affectionate with one another. Rwandans are known for being reserved, not warm and hospitable like the reputation of many other African cultures. Regarding the genocide, the population as a whole generally avoid talking about it, particularly on a personal level. This is not surprising given the avoidance that is a basic feature of the impact of trauma on individuals. It is also political. In modern day Rwanda, ethnicity is a taboo subject. People rarely utter the words, Hutu or Tutsi. Political surveillance is everywhere, and people are very careful what they say even in their own homes. On the other side, revenge killings and intimidating witnesses in the Gacaca process (local justice system to try people who participated in the genocide) are frequent. Even for politically safe topics, people simply do not discuss the genocide or their own stories of living through it. It is too painful. It is too risky. It is simply not done. Therefore, for us expatriates (though I suspect less so for our Rwandan neighbors), it is easy for the genocide to seem a distant reality from contemporary, day-to-day life. For these reasons, it was startling for me see the genocide remembered in such an intensely personal, and intensely public way. On the other hand, it makes sense. This is how Rwandans mourn—collectively, for one week out of the year.

Now it is May, and the Week of Mourning is already far from my daily thoughts. This has been a difficult newsletter for me to complete. I think I too avoid focusing on the painful reality of the genocide. And yet it is the ever present backdrop of our work at Friends Peace House, work that is full of hope and promise. Aaron and I have been trying to spend as much time as possible in these first few months accompanying our colleagues in the field to learn about the work that they do. Here are a few of the highlights:

• I participated in a Trauma Healing workshop in Byumba, where many participants experienced the relief of realizing for perhaps the first time that the symptoms they experience are: a NORMAL response, that NORMAL people have to ABNORMAL events. They also had the opportunity to enthusiastically imagine how their personal and collective healing journeys are also connected to building a culture of peace.

• I got to visit a group of villagers that participated in the FPH restorative justice/prisoner reintegration project, and hear the stories of both survivors and ex-prisoners who came together to build houses for vulnerable members of their community. It was particularly striking to listen to a man who describes his participation in the genocide and his deep, deep remorse. It was incredible to witness the forgiveness offered to this man.

• I have visited one of the Women in Dialogue groups (that brings together vulnerable women such as widows and single, heads of household from both sides of the war and genocide) and listened to their stories of healing and forgiveness. We also got to participate in the distribution of goats to Women in Dialogue groups throughout the country, an initiative to help these women cooperatively achieve economic self-sufficiency.

• I have participated in a workshop on becoming Change Agents for Peace with a group of village women in the cool, mountain village of Kidaho. There I was inspired to dialogue with the women about the international women's movement and how that connects to local problems of health, economic empowerment, violence against women, etc.

• I visited a very vulnerable association of women in Butare, who all used to beg in the streets of the city, and many of them were forced into prostitution. This group of approximately 60, homeless, extremely marginalized women, started in part through the Women's AIDS education program of FPH. The group began by focusing on raising awareness about AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases, but is now focusing on the tremendous challenge of economic empowerment, and how to escape the poverty trap.

• I did home visits on foot in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, with extremely vulnerable children who are being supported through the FPH sponsorship program to complete their secondary education. Many of these children are orphans of the genocide or HIV, and would have no other possibility to continue in school. We are trying to develop the sponsorship program to a point of being able to provide necessary medical care, school supplies, and crucial psychosocial support in addition to school fees, in order to help these vulnerable children succeed in school. (Please contact us if you are interested in becoming a sponsor.)

• I have also had the opportunity to begin getting to know the children of Mwana Nshuti (Child, My Friend) program, the FPH school for street children. Through observation, photography, and interviews with both staff and children, I had the opportunity to witness the incredible work of gathering these children from the margins and helping them rediscover a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, a sense of hope.

As I write these words, I am truly filled with awe, at the incredibly ways God is working through Friends Peace House, and at the honor it is to accompany our Rwandan colleagues in this work. For us sometimes, it is easy to feel discouraged at the things that aren't working as well as envisioned, at the administrative challenges, or simply by the immensity of the economic and social challenges Rwanda faces, but sharing our experiences with all of you helps me to remember how easy it is to fall into the trap of not seeing the forest for the trees. Thank you for all of your support, love, and prayers, and for accompanying us on this incredible journey. Much love to all of you,

Celeste (And family)

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