Rwanda

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About 18 years ago I traveled to Rwanda. It's the heart of central Africa. Kind of a long story about how I got there. Maybe I'll write that in future blog posts. I was young (well, 50 years old, but a lot younger than my current 68). But an acquaintance, soon to be good friend, Cindy talked me into going. I had recently read Left to Tell, by Imaculee Ilibagiza. It's her personal story of faith and survival during the genocide that happened there from April 7 to July 19, 1994. I was immensely blessed to go on that trip with Immaculee. 

I don't know what I was paying attention to at that time, but it wasn't Rwanda. Somehow that was under my radar. Somehow, over a million people being massacred in three months did not make the news here very often. 

I kept a journal of my trip, a little red notebook that I filled up completely. I still have that notebook, a treasure, filled with the memories of the most beautiful people on earth. It's also filled with laughter, grief, love, and tears. This next piece is from an early entry of that small notebook. 

Thirty five thousand feet in the air. Humans have only been flying at all for 105 years. Now we are cruising at thirty five thousand feet above Nova Scotia. By the time we land in Rwanda we’ll cross six time zones. Three continents. 

Three hundred people, cruising at seven or eight miles above the earth, going six hundred fifty miles per hour, getting ready to cross the Atlantic Ocean. It’s 7:39 PM where we took off in New York City. It’s 1:39 AM where we’ll land in Brussels. I’m looking at a monitor that shows our progress as we cross the ocean. A tiny picture of a plane with a dotted line showing our direction, where we’ve been, where we’re going.

 Soft drinks, coffee, TV shows, magazines, ear buds, multi-channels in our arm rests, overhead lights, flight attendant call buttons, reclining chairs, little pillows, portable DVD players, MP3 players, headphones that cancel flight noise, laptop computers, expensive hardcover books bought in the airport, battered paperback books, the Bible, The Koran, Skymall catalog. Perfume, a baby crying, laughter, playing cards, adolescent boys punching each other in the arms, irritable stewardess, lovers holding hands. Humans are amazing. One million one hundred seventeen thousand deaths in the Rwandan genocide (that we know of so far… rounded to the nearest thousand). The US fussed about whether or not it was genocide. We watched. We knew. We did nothing. Humans are more than just amazing.

Clinton and Albright apologized for not trying to stop the genocide in Rwanda  (music video). Sincerely. How long before we apologize for not stopping the genocide in Darfur? Digital watches, iPhones, iPods, handheld video.games, in flight movies, CBS Sports on TV, sitcoms with canned laughter. Flying seven miles high over the Atlantic Ocean. Onemilliononehundredseventeenthousand Rwandans were killed in one hundred days. Over ten thousand a day. Humans are amazing.

Onemilliononehundredseventeenthousand stories. It’s almost too big to imagine, too big to believe, too immense to even think about. FREE PARIS HILTON. That’s what a sign said at the nursery and garden center by my house. FREE PARIS HILTON. Humans are amazing.