As seems to be the norm lately, I can't get Murambi off my mind. Loading your schedule with classes about Africa will do that to you, apparently. I think my professors are starting to get sick of me. Really.
I've already gone through the experience of Murambi itself: the corpses, the smell, the visceral emotional breakdown and the long-lasting effects of genocide. But there are things I haven't written down, at least until now.
Things like Emmanuel and his heartbreaking story.
Like the circle processing that tore everyone's hearts to pieces.
Like coming together at the end of this, the most difficult day, and raising our glasses to friends, family, and enjoying the life you live.
Emmanuel is a victim of genocide. Although he is still alive in body, the events of April 1994 kill his spirit slowly, day by day.
Emmanuel's entire family, including his wife and six children, were killed at Murambi. After hiding among the corpses of his dead family and friends, he escaped from the decimated hilltop under the cover of night. He is one of the only survivors. He now spends every day of his life looking after the memorial, surrounded by the decomposing remains of the only people that ever meant anything to him.
He has a bullet hole in the top of his head.
Our program assistant, Apollon, has known Emmanuel for many years. He told us that over the course of their friendship, he's watched Emmanuel wither away, being slowly killed by the memory of everything he's lost.
Emmanuel is proof that you don't have to die by the sharp blade of a machete to feels its horrifying pain... those in the ground are not the only victims.
The soil in Rwanda has been soaked with blood, but the genocide continues to claim lives every day.
After going through the rooms at Murambi, and then taking some time to reflect alone, Stefanie and Apollon brought us together to process this experience. We sat in a circle in silence, passing around a talking stone and speaking when we felt the need. Some people never spoke, but others spoke the most eloquent and emotional words I have ever heard.
We discussed God. We discussed guilt. We discussed beauty and pain and death and the human capability of committing such sins against our fellow man. Some were numb, some were fighting the welling tears, some were allowing those tears to flow freely as voices cracked and cheeks dampened. It was the most open and emotional many of us had been on the trip thus far, and in the end it only brought us closer.
That night, we all went out to dinner. Stefanie and Apollon told us that the other group had been hit hard by Murambi, going so far as to drag all of their hotel mattresses into one room so they could be together that night. We took a decidedly different approach... we drank. Now, I'm not saying we numbed the pain in a dark bar... quite the contrary. We were still shaken, but it was Zuri's birthday. Her 21st, to be precise. So we took all the things we were feeling, all the power behind them, and directed them at celebrating. We drank, we toasted, we gave speeches about how much we loved this friend of ours. We drank to being alive, to counting our blessings, to the love we felt for this family we'd created amongst ourselves. And slowly but surely, we all began to heal.
Rwanda is the essence of human tragedy and the most senseless atrocity of recent memory.
But we can learn from it. We have to learn from it.
If there's one thing I took away from Murambi (and from living in East Africa in general) its how precious life is. How precarious. And how we are all responsible for one another. We are all human and we are all in this together. The things that seem so far away, so far removed because they're happening on the other side of the world in a place we can't quite visualize... they matter. We can't forget that.
We can't ignore these atrocities just because they aren't happening to us. Because it is only by chance that you or I were not born into a family of fifteen in an isolated and poverty-stricken village in Rwanda and instead were born into a world of privilege and opportunity. It could have been you. It could have been you. Your family, your friends, your countrymen slaughtered on a hilltop for no crime other than the ethnic identity stamped on your ID card.
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and best-selling author, has said,
"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."What are we saying to these innocent victims when we hold our tongues? We are saying,
"You don't matter. The world does not take pity on your plight."When we allow genocide and oppression to happen time after time, despite the infamous declarations of "NEVER AGAIN," we are sending an abundantly clear message. We are saying to Emmanuel, who has suffered more than any of us can imagine yet has made it his mission to make sure the world does not forget,
"You have suffered in vain. We have not learned a single thing from your misery."
What is your silence saying?
I'm not naive. I know for most people there are more pressing matters, more personal daily struggles and problems that deserve attention first. I'm not asking you to join me in my adventures to the third world or to dedicate your life to the fight for human rights. That just isn't a practical or valid request. All I'm asking is for you to pay attention. To continue the conversation. To give a damn. But even that, it seems, can be too much to ask.
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