June 14

So I have officially been here one week. We still have no idea what we’re going to do at work, but yesterday we worked on a brochure and some excel spreadsheets. I am a master at merging cells. We also got to see the new bank hall today, and it’s really nice. I don’t care that much about the banking stuff, but it’s exciting to be here while they will open it. But, I really hope that when we figure out more specifically what we’re doing, that I am with the microfinance people. I mean, the bank is microfinance also, but since it’s in Kigali, it necessarily caters to the working poor, rather than people who do not even have “real” jobs. But at the same time, I want to be useful, so if they really need more people at the bank, I will do that.


I had an intense conversation with Daniel last night about Rwanda’s colonial history and the genocide. It’s the kind of topic that I want to hear about from people here, but you can’t just ask because you never know how affected people were. But earlier he said he moved to Rwanda in 1995 (he grew up in Uganda but is Rwandese) so I knew that at least he was not in the country during genocide. So, we talked about the things that set it in motion, and how the seeds were planted in the 1960s. I thought that it was the Belgians who sent the arms to the Interahamwe, but actually the French were the most involved. They even set up the “turquoise zone” and allowed Interahamwe to flee to Congo. I will go tomorrow to get a book about this, there’s one that came out recently, because I can’t believe that all the things he said are true. I mean, I believe him, but it’s so shocking and really awful that it’s hard to believe it could happen, much less that the French gov’t hasn’t apologized or at least acknowledged their role. We will go to the memorial here, which is supposed to be really good. There are other places you can go, like the church where Tutsis were massacred after they had sought refuge there, and you can still see the bloodstains on the floor and on the wall where they smashed babies’ heads. I don’t know that I want to go see that, or that could ask anyone here to take me, because I’m sure none of them really want to see that.

I feel unprepared to discuss the subject, although it was okay with Daniel, but it’s so hard because in the U.S. (and my life especially) was so shielded from large-scale horror and has been for generations. The Vietnam War was the last huge thing to affect us as a population, and even that was halfway around the world. One ninth of the Rwandese people were killed in three months, and some people that I have met here saw it happen. What am I supposed to say? So far I haven’t talked to anyone who saw things during genocide, but you can kind of tell. Like, if people say they grew up here, you know they were here when it was going on, and many times you can tell who is Tutsi just by looking at them. Also, sometimes if you are talking about peoples’ families, they will say “My mother has died” in this way that is so final, you just know.