Sunday 26 July

Hello from the famous Hotel Mille Collines (featured in the film Hotel Rwanda and in the book A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali by Gil Courtemanche). This was the treat I planned for myself today. The first time I came to Kigali I thought this place was far too grand for me - and it kinduv is. But I've wanted a swim all week, and I figured a hot walk uphill to get to this pool was better than the uphill walk I would have after my swim if I went to the Circle Sportif. So I have had a great day here, taking advantage of the free WiFi and trying to catch up on the readings for the 2nd week which is all about peacemaking, keeping and building. This is a bit dreary for me - it doesn't have the adrenaline rush of trauma and conflict!

The outstanding features of the first week of the course which concentrated on causes and actors of genocide were of-course my fellow students, our lecturers, the way one is forced to think about genocide and perpetration, and a terrible but extraordinary movie that we only watched because our eminent history lecturer had an emergency meeting with his vice-chancellor. (More about these below)

One of my goals was to meet with my fellow mental health professionals and at my instigation we had a formal meeting after class on Wednesday when 5 of us met and introduced ourselves and the work that we do. We have two men who are facilitators of a form of Social Therapy which has networks all over the country. People are recruited (I don't know how) and they meet for a week. The groups are mixed - from different social classes and gender and most importantly victim/survivors and perpetrators or the children thereof. With the safety they are able to create, people hear about each others experiences and with the expression of feelings that occurs, some kind of reconciliation happens. Another man is a psychotherapist, spiritual healer and cultural activist. He has lots of stories about how breaking cultural taboos causes mental illness - the biggest taboo being the killings that have occurred in the post-colonial era. The other woman, besides myself is a clinical psychologist, who has studied at the University of Johannesburg. But she has done many other things including being a local councillor here in Rwanda.

I'm getting behind so I'll just mention the name of the movie so you won't be left too much in suspense. It was "The Act of Killing". Joshua Oppenheimer, a documentary filmmaker made it about killers of communists and ethnic Chinese in Indonesia in 1965. These perpetrators won that "dirty war" so they are proud and boastful about what they did and were happy to re-enact their modes of killing. It has won a lot of prizes and there are many interviews online with Joshua O. because it is so horrific and almost unbelievable. The most telling interview of him that I read tells the story of how he came to make this film. He had been working with some survivors on the rubber plantations and he didn't think what he was filming was all that interesting - the sites of mass graves etc. The survivors themselves suggested he film the killers and so he did!

Rwandan Vignettes contd

I don't know how to change the order of these posts on my new tablet, so read the one below first. To cut a long story short - I decided not to go to Tanzania this weekend but I did go on a motorbike taxi - Fred on one and me on another - to order my wedding outfit (iterero) in a little shop at the end of a whole floor of wedding shops. I also found out how the ritual goes for a traditional wedding - the one I'm going to miss. The brides' parents bring out the wrong sister to the groom's wedding party and they go through the ritual of saying, "No she is not the one we came for," until the correct one is brought out from her father's house. Only then does the groom come forward. The picture here is of Fred helping me to choose the material for my garment in the shop.

Rwandan Vignettes

I feel I should write about the course today but it wasn't quite as interesting as my adventures in Kigali. I went to get a SIM card before class. The woman who had to fill in my passport details on her computer got distracted. Why? Because she said, "I can't believe how old you are! You look so strong...." I smiled. (I found out later that the average lifespan in Rwanda is 65 - so no wonder she was surprised.) She asked if I had lots of children. "No," I said trotting out my usual facetious response, "I forgot to have them." "You forgot?" She was wide-eyed and open-mouthed, "But didn't your neighbors remind you?" That was not a response I've ever had before!

It says a lot about Rwandan society and I told this story in class when we were discussing the intimacy of the violence that characterized the Rwandan genocide - neighbour killing neighbour, teammates killing former team members, Hutu husbands killing Tutsi wives on pain of death themselves - the local genocidaires knew their victims, had drunk banana beer with them and had traded cows with them. (Jean Hatzfeld: "Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak." (2006))

Fred, my Rwandan "son" - we adopted each other about 9 years ago - came to meet me after the course finished for the day. He is getting married in 3 weeks time. That's not wholly correct - he has been through month's of family negotiations and rituals and last week had a civil ceremony. He had yet to tell me the plans. He is a rather secretive person - as a genocide orphan, he is not used to confiding in anyone. He has a habit of surprising me. In Cape Town he was always opening new businesses in Belville and only telling me when they were up and running. So I ask him what are the plans for the wedding?
"Well we still have to have the introductions where the families meet."
"I thought you'd done that already?" I'm a bit taken aback.
"No, it's the traditional wedding. Do you want to come to that?" he asks.
"Sure, of-course. Don't I need a special garment? I've been asking around..."
"Yes," he says, "but that can be arranged - you are on my list."
"When is it?"  I' m wondering how much time I have to do this.
"This weekend."
 Good God! "Why didn't you tell me?!"
A little giggle, "it's in Tanzania."
 "WHAT?" I'm astounded, exasperated and clutching my head at the craziness of all this. He never told me his bride was from Tanzania!

Apparently, for Rwandans its no big deal to cross this border. The 35 members of his entourage are all sorted - he has hired a bus for them and they don't have to pay and, most importantly, they have been preparing themselves for this for months! I will have to pay twice, travel for about 14 hours all told in 30 degree heat, and stay overnight in Tanzania - uhrrr!!! I can't do it!!!

Not Yet "Beyond Trauma" - Genocide Travels

I'm in Kigali for the second time in a year. I'm going to use my blog as a kind of journal to keep me reflecting and communicating because I'm on a 2 - week course entitled "Genocide and Mass Atrocities: Actors, Causes and Responses to Violence." It's run by the Aegis Trust who not only set up the Genocide Museum here but who are now in the archive, busy digitizing the evidence of the gacaca courts - 25 million of handwritten pages! and something which has never been done before. We were sent readings for the course about 2 months ago and were told to read everything before we came. It has been a steep learning curve and I've loved it! I'm not quite done yet - a few more papers to go! Today was the first day - there are about 45 - 50 of us here sitting in a big U - shape.
A large Rwandan contingent - academics from faculties of Law and Education, government employees, people involved with local governance, heads of small NGOs concerned with community mental health, marginalized  Batwa - the small indigenous people of Rwanda - and Rwandan culture. There are people from Kenya and Uganda, from a Genocide Studies Department in Amsterdam, a group of Swiss anthropology students, a British guy from the Royal Commonwealth Society and me. I have found out that quite a few of the Rwandans have studied short courses in South Africa. We have a deal with Rwanda that their students pay the same rate as South Africans so guys have studied governance at the University of Pretoria and the assistant head of the Law School studied in "Potch" - his abbreviation!
There is lots of discussion; many different viewpoints. Phil Clark, the Australian course leader from SOAS is very encouraging and validating of comments and questions so we are seeing an open space being created. We touched on the sore point of whether we would be allowed to say ANYthing i.e. talking about who is Tutsi or Hutu or that there was not a genocide? Our Rwandan lecturer put it as a question: Is genocide denial a hate crime or part of freedom of speech? In Rwanda denying that there was genocide in 1994 is a criminal offense and chargeable in court. You cannot deny, minimize or trivialize the genocide. This is also the case in some European countries with regard to the Holocaust but not in the USA. There it is considered part of freedom of speech. With regard to definitions - whether mass violence is genocide, a crime against humanity or a war crime - these should not be seen as describing a hierarchy of suffering. "Rather" he asked, "can you talk about these in a neutral way without being biased by the experience you have gone through?" This seems to be the difficulty the Rwandan refugees that I have met in the dialogue groups at the Cape Town Holocaust Centre seem to experience. They are not able to do this.