The Rwanda Monologues

2/26/2009

“All at once, as it seemed, something we could have only imagined was upon us – and we could still only imagine it. This is what fascinates me most in existence: the peculiar necessity of imagining what is, in fact, real… The word ‘genocide’ and the images of the nameless and numberless dead left too much to the imagination.”

- We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch

Today was a hard day. After seven weeks in Rwanda I finally mustered up enough energy (read: emotional strength) to make the trip to the national genocide memorial in Kigali. It’s been a mere 10 minute drive away for the past 49 days and yet it has felt like an impossibly hard trip to make until today. I had finished about half of Philip Gourevitch’s book (quoted above) over the course of about a week in New York but upon arriving in Rwanda, it took me a solid month to finish the other half. After finishing, I put it away and have taken the past couple weeks away from it to try and process all the emotions it brought up. I finally went back to it earlier this week and looked over some of the pages I had marked and was particularly struck by the quotation above. I realized that really, even with all the emotions I’d experienced and conversations I’ve had with people here, I had still only imagined the events of 15 years ago. Suddenly I felt a tremendous guilt for not actively pursuing a more tangible experience earlier in my trip and made the decision to visit the memorial immediately.
Two hours, thousands of haunting images and several mass graves later, I left with the realization that the enormity of it all isn’t really comprehensible and I’m still just left with my imagination. But I’m also left with the faces and heart wrenching last words of 30 children killed in the genocide. And I’m left with a greater understanding of the historical context of not only the Rwandan genocide but others throughout history. So, overall I’m extremely grateful to the creators of the monument for their beautiful memorial to the victims of such {barely} imaginable violence and hatred. While the entire scope of what happened here may only ever be fully captured in one’s imagination, I am honored to have been witness to a few people’s personal stories and to have brought a touch of reality into what has all too easily and commonly been dismissed in history as a far off and intangible concept: genocide.

Please consider contributing to Ageis Trust, the organization that runs the Kigali Memorial Center. They are having a candle lighting ceremony for the 15th anniversary of the genocide this April.
http://www.candlesforrwanda.org/view/10/the-project.html

As a fitting complement to the visit to the genocide memorial this morning, I attended a performance of the “Rwanda Monologues” this evening at Torero Café. The performance was an adaptation of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” and was the first ever performance of any part of The Vagina Monologues in Rwanda (not to mention only the fourth ever production in all of Africa). As a part of the V-DAY 2009 campaign (the "V" stands for valentine, vagina and victory over violence), the proceeds of the performance benefit an organization called Achieving a Better Life which works to prevent gender-based violence in Rwanda.
The theme of V-DAY 2009 is “Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource: Power to the Women and Girls of Democratic Republic of the Congo.” Eve Ensler wrote a monologue called Baptized specifically for this cause after interviewing an eight year old girl, Noella, at Panzi Hospital in eastern DRC. After the interview, Eve tried to hug Noella and she squirmed away. Eve realized then that Noella probably hadn’t been hugged since she was raped by a group of Militia every day for two weeks straight. The rapes had given her a fistula so she was no longer continent. Eve hugged her anyway and held her on her lap and after that, there was no turning back…

Baptized
by Eve Ensler

Look out your window
The dead live everywhere
Think of your luxuries as corpses
Count the bodies

30 hacked children for a new play station

20 tortured women so you can text photos from the party

50 amputated men, waving their missing hands
as sweet Andrew mindlessly bounces his rubber ball

I hold an eight year old girl in my lap
Who had been raped by so many men
She had an extra hole inside her

When she accidentally peed on me
I was baptized

It isn’t over there

The Congo

It’s inside everything you touch and do

Or do not do.