Rwanda's Journey Back Home

Going to Rwanda was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I never thought I would get the opportunity to go to Africa growing up in the situation I did. I grew up in a low middle-class family and this was my first time being outside the country. I am a biology student from Buffalo State University.

Having the opportunity to learn about the atrocities other people went through and then learning how they pushed past it and healed was a major part of this trip and I'm grateful for it. I have problems with forgiveness due to things that happened in my lifetime and I wanted to try to learn how to forgive. It has helped me grow as a person, I have become closer to my classmates, and now I feel comfortable asking difficult questions. This made it feel like my voice was heard, allowing me to convey a story. Even though I always felt like every story mattered it reinforced it and showed how just listening isn't enough.

The experience was incredible. My whole life when I pictured Africa I imagined an undeveloped country that was lacking. After living out there for two weeks; I came to see the beautiful picture that proved me wrong. I gained so much respect for the people and interacted with a different culture out of my element. The way they live, and their values, while combining with ones I practice, can turn something good into a great thing.

The land of 1000 hills is beautiful, and the country has a story to tell, I hope I can do it justice, but here is my experience out there.

I chose to focus on Peace, justice, and building strong institutions(SDG #16). We partnered with the Kigali Memorial Center.

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you"- Lewis B. Smedes

What I learned is Rwanda is a country that was unified in the 1800s before interference from Europeans. Eventually, they were colonized in 1897 by Germany, and then in 1916 Belgium took control and changed their ways of life. Harming the unity the country once had, dividing a country into factions based on class, thus creating conflict, distrust, and pain. Over the years of feeling mistreated, the Hutu extremists enacted acts of violence against Tutsis and eventually, it boiled into the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi; where over 1 million Tutsi and Hutu moderates( Hutus who aided Tutsi) were killed. Growing up I never tried to picture a genocide, seeing records of it, pictures, and videos showing death was hard to understand why people would harm others in this way.

When we arrived at the memorial, when we sat down for the brief video at the start I knew it was going to be a hard hitter. I teared up after hearing how a woman was betrayed by her neighbors and her family was massacred. Going through the museum, reading the history, and understanding no one helped and that the signs were present to the outside world infuriated me. Once the images of the bodies were shown I became stuck in a sense, and my stomach felt a little uneasy, my breath made like a ball in my throat and I was just stuck thinking about my emotions. Innocent lives were taken and blamed for crimes since another group hated them, but they were of the same people. What hurt the most was when I saw the children's room and I think her name was Auriane (forgive me if I forgot) a 4-year-old who looks like me, she was stabbed in her head and eyes. I had to sit for a moment and try to grasp who would want to harm a baby like that, her picture has been stuck in my head since. I realized that this wasn't so far in the past when I saw one of the victims wearing Adidas sweats and it was like, “Yes this happened near your lifetime and it still goes on in other countries “. I left feeling saddened but grateful I was able to take part in the experience. The one thing that brought joy to my heart and us as humans was reading about how the orphans looked out for each other and in a sense became each other's family after they all lost their loved ones. This showed me all hope is never truly lost.

Going to the reconciliation village was an eye-opening experience that helped me think about my views on forgiveness. In a sense, if the victims could forgive their killers I should give it a try in situations in my life. Their stories were amazing and wrenching seeing the perpetrators so remorseful of the actions they committed. It showed me even those who have done badly can come around and change for the better. The perpetrators who came forth and admitted to their crimes were given a chance to re-enter society after helping to rebuild their country for some years and seek forgiveness for the victims they harmed.

The Idea of this sounded insane to me at first, but after seeing it I realized that this ultimately promoted peace. The victims would be less inclined to harness hate and resentment in their hearts if the perpetrators could acknowledge what they have done and seek forgiveness and having perpetrators rebuild the country made it stronger. Giving perpetrators the chance to not spend the rest of their lives in prison, separated from their loved ones, also eases their hearts and allows them to work toward becoming a better person. A strong community was formed in that reconciliation village, the Rwandan leaders did a fantastic job making the country one again and educating its citizens so that something that bad will never happen again.

We practiced Story-based Learning with the staff it was fun and interesting to learn with different individuals and get a sense of how their mind works. We had to cooperate after a break where I got to relax we shared our experiences of growing up in our respective countries and we opened up. I had to take some time to myself because I re-opened an old mental wound of my late brother Amani Alcindor, and the talks made me realize I would rather have the presence of security Rwandans have; in the sense of gun control because in America there are more guns than people and kids are killing kids. It was a tough conversation but glad we had it. We spoke about more but that stuck with me the most. The police presence in Rwanda is well, and they do their best to keep the peace and enforce justice in their country.

It was nice learning about their practices in educating the people about peace and forgiveness. I learned forgiveness is not a straight and narrow path but is a journey to undergo. It was taught to us by participating in an exercise where we were given cards with different life stories on them. some the same, and were told statements about forgiveness. We were advised to step forward or back depending on what we agreed with a statement, and by the end, it showed not everyone follows the same path to forgiveness. It's something special and fascinating, to be honest. This space allowed us to learn, feel heard, and important, having this for the public to educate them about peace and the horror that can erupt from conflicts is very important. It's great that the Rwandans are pushing this so that the country can remain a progressing and safe country.

The message from the peace training at the memorial center that stuck with me the most was that forgiveness is not a straight path. There are different ways people accept and challenges people face when being asked or asking for forgiveness.

Rwanda is a beautiful country that we can learn from, they built strong institutions and can use that as the spine of their country to keep promoting peace and justice so that an atrocity of the magnitude of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda won't happen again. In the end, they became one again and found their way home. thank you for listening.