Miriwe (good afternoon) to all!
This week has been a very busy week. I have gotten to know Rwanda quite a bit better and can feel myself falling in love. It is a completely different sort of culture then Uganda, which although it may seem naive to say is really surprising to me since they are so close. The people here are the most polite people I have ever met. They obey authority without question (which can either mean bad or good things – but with the leadership of Kagame generally means good things). However, this is very strange for me since I prefer the bottom-up sort of activist style, but here that just wouldn't fly. If the order does not come from above it is not an order. That being said, if it is from above, it is law.
On Wednesday of last week I went to the gacaca (pronounced gachacha). This is a war tribunal kind of a court which takes place every Wednesday (but it varies from village to village) and is a place where people can come to give testimonies about prisoners accused of acts of genocide. It is generally a form of justice and retaliation on those who killed families, friends, loved ones... Everything closes down on Wednesday in the city to encourage people to go. They have until the end of this year to try everyone (although with speak of extending the dead line of the bigger cases taking place in Tanzania it's very possible this deadline will also be extended). In some places they have already finished, but here in Huye they are still trying prisoners. So I give for you an account of what I saw. Everything was in Kinrwanda so I have only a broken translation of the case brought forward.
The day started late, and there were maybe around 50 people there (although this number grew substantially as the case continued). Five judges walked in, two women and three men. These judges stay the same throughout the trying, and most looked slightly older. They each wore everyday clothing save a sash with the Rwandan flag.
The case started with a moment of silence. I think this is what shook my core the most. It reminded me of the moment of silence we take November 11th every year to commemorate the soldiers who fell during the First, Second and Korean wars (among others). However, when I am taking this moment of silence I am remembering people, events, feelings I never experienced. Sure, it moves me, and I try to feel what it must have been like to fight for these wars, but that is nothing compared to really experiencing a war. However, I knew that during this moment of silence everyone in the room knew exactly what had happened during the genocide. They all had stories to tell, scars to bare, loved ones to miss. It was very moving and eerie to think of a moment of silence in which everyone in the room was thinking of their own experiences.
Next came the testimonies. Everyone was welcome to bring forward names of people they knew who had commited acts of genocide, along with accounts of why they had been tried. This was done on sheets of scrap paper that were brought forward to the judges and then were examined accordingly. Next came the introduction of the prisoners. I only stayed for the story of one of the prisoners, but here is what happened:
He came forward. He had been sitting in the back with the other prisoner and there seemed to be one guard near by. Neither tried to make any escape, and both wore prison uniforms which were pink and consisted of a shirt and shorts. The shorts were interesting to me since I realized these were actually the first bare male legs I had seen since my arrival here. It is a way, I think, to humiliate and demoralize the prisoners since no one wears shorts in any circumstance.
They did not have a folder for this prisoner so they had to go through his story and make one for him. He said he had been a shop keeper down the street. The judges asked him how he moved his products around and he said that he had a truck that was given to him by a mzungu (white person). He did not know the name of this mzungu and just kept sayig 'mzungu, mzungu.' This, of course, is one of the few words I understand, so although at this point I did not know what was going on I definitely knew they were talking about a white person. Anyway, he concluded that he hadn't comited acts of genocide, and that this truck he had been provided with was given to him by a mzungu, and not the intraharmwe (the militia Hugu group which made the genocide happen).
There were two witnesses testifying against him (the ones who were going to testify for him were going to come the next week). The first one got very sick half way through her testimony and had to be escorted away from the chair where she was sitting. However, she came back after the second witness had given her testimony. Basically, she had also been a prisoner at one point in 1997, for what reasons, I still don't fully understand why or the relevance of this. What was shocking is that mid-way through her testimony people began laughing. Laughing? Really? This seemed far to serious to be any kind of a laughing matter. The other witness had given a full testimony, saying that one of her friends who worked at the hospital with her (and where both witnesses worked) had been killed. The second witness said that it was him who did it, and gave her testimony against him. However, the first witness, the one who got sick midway through and had to leave, said that she did not know who killed her friend. I later discovered that this is why they had been laughing at her – they said that there was no way a friend could be killed and you would not try and find out who had done it. This seemed very strange to me, and hard to grasp. I don't know how I feel about this – I mean, it seems like it would be pretty difficult to want to know who had killed your friend when people all around you are being killed. Wouldn't there be a certain feeling of just wanting to stay out of it and pretend like life was continuing on as normal? An interesting moral dilema.
This week also consisted of a welcome party at the house where I am living for me and the other volunteer who is newly arrived, as well as Alex, the German volunteer who has been here a while, whose birthday was earlier in the week. We celebrated and partied, it was a really great time. I learned about a Rwandan custom which was so very interesting. It is the costum of banana beer (which tastes neither like bananas or beer). Banana beer is the local beer and it is dubed the beer of heros. In fact, if you wish to drink it you have to prove you are a hero by going in front of everyone and saying 'I am a hero because...'. Then everyone yells and judges whether or not you are trully a hero and deserve to be drinking this beer. This tradition originates from the genocide when, at the end of the day soldiers would come back to their camps and would have to say how many people they have killed. If they had killed enough, and had had a successful day then they were able to drink – if not, they were not permitted. I hope to bring some banana beer home. Along with some strawberry wine (which neither tastes like strawberries or wine).
This Sunday was also a big event. It was the 25th annual Candlelight Memorial March. It is a march which happens every year in memorial of people who have died or been affected by AIDS. Last year the turn out was bigger, but this year was more organized. In my eyes it seemed like a wonderful success, but I know Alex, who was the primary organizer was disappointed. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed myself. There were many speechs preaching abstanance and condoms if you really can't hold it in (it was my job to help hand out free condoms). There was a testimony from a woman who's husband had cheated on her with another woman and brought back AIDS, which she was now dying from and which her three children also suffered from. It was moving, and in the end I think the audience was very moved by the speeches made.
I also went up to the project early last week, but if you wish to learn more about this you are welcome to check out my second blog. All I can say is that things here are starting to pick up and move along. I really love the medical students, and have so much to learn from them. I was a bit sick with a cold this week but now that I'm over it I'm all set and ready to go for another week in paradise!
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