just another day

The commemoration period continues for the whole 100 days of the genocide, which began on April 7, 1994, and every day has significance for so many people. Every day is a day of deep sorrow, and one of the people with an anniversary date this week is my young colleague Yves Kamuronsi. Today, the date that his father died after much suffering and in memory the following was posted on the facebook site, Raindrops over Rwanda (link below):

"At the beginning of the genocide in April 1994, the neighbors in Kagarama sector did not attack Yves' family, and so they were hid in a neighbor’s home. On the 27th of April, the presidential guards came into the area and looked for Yves’ family. When they found them, they requested money in return for their lives. Yves’ father offered a check, but they wouldn't accept it, saying that there was no place during the war that the check could be cashed. The killers shot them, but Yves’ father didn’t die; still he suffered from a shot in his back. The neighbor helped him again and he recovered until the 4th of May, when another neighbor saw that he was still alive. He called militiamen who came and asked Yves’ father to dig his own grave. They shot him twice in head."

Today also a group of secondary students has come to the memorial centre to attend our daylong workshop. After lunch, they walked quietly in a group to the mass graves, all wearing standard school uniform, short-sleeved white shirts and khaki pants or skirts. They have a wreath and each youth is also carrying a single rose. I watch the guide leading them to the grave that is partly glassed over so that you can look down at the coffins draped with purple and white cloths. I watch the students standing quietly for a few minutes and after they leave I go down to the grave and stand there myself, contemplating the flowers and roses that they have left and the tears in my eyes. I am thinking, if their hearts are open, if their contemplation is true, then there is a future for Rwanda.

I walked most to the way to work this morning, seeing everywhere the purple commemoration banners that drape the country and that will stay up until July 4th, the day of liberation. Banners are hung at memorials and by public and private institutions. It’s probably a good idea to put one outside your bank or hotel, just to communicate the right message, that your organization honors the memory of the genocide and is committed to a unified future. Even better if your organization gets its entire staff out on a walk to a memorial centre.

With all this public and private grief and the purple buzzing in the background, sometimes a little tensely, the business of private citizens and the nation continues. The paper reports this morning on plans to hand over regulation of Rwandan media from government to the media industry. This move, intended to support a self-regulated and independent media, is being welcomed by journalists but what it means in practice remains to be seen. There are also ongoing talks in government on media policy and law that will soon be presented to Cabinet for approval. Whether this means a shift in the balance between a more open press and the country’s security needs remains to be seen.

Also in the paper, Rwanda is pushing for harmonization and strengthening of environmental laws with neighbouring countries. Rwanda is such a wee place, a mere dot on the map of Africa, and consequently vulnerable to environmental practices, for example, on the Congolese side of large Lake Kivu. In the East African Legislative Campaign, there is a sensitization campaign to encourage other East African countries to emulate Rwanda’s ban on plastic bags. Now that would change the face of Kenya for the better, although what would be used for ‘flying toilets’ (slum dwellers defecating into plastic bags because of lack of latrines, then tossing them outside) would be problematic.

The road crews are still at it, paving and repaving roads that look just fine to me and making my commute home hot and slow; the rains are still coming magnificently, blown in by quickly rising winds and accompanied by electrical blessings in the form of wild thunder and bright flashes; I’m still trying to find funds for the education programs here at the memorial centre, life goes on. Just as I get off the bus, a spectacular rainbow. Tonight, pizza with a couple of young friends from UK.


https://www.facebook.com/exploreRwanda?sk=wall#!/notes/raindrops-over-rwanda/raise-our-voices-to-reach-humanity-yves-kamuronsis-story/112768148808506