Sunday July 19 2009

I have been out of contact for a while. The internet access at the hotel went down for a few days, and I was too busy to go to another place. It is Sunday, now, Denise arrived, and we are catching up. I'm at a cyber cafe in the Union Trade Center, which is kind of a mall.

So much has happened since I got here, too much to convey in a few minutes of blogging. Probably too much to convey in a week or a month, at least in terms of my psychological life. But here are some of the highlights.

I travelled to the country and spoke to two trauma survivors, a highly traumatized woman and two highly traumatized sisters. (I don't remember if I wrote this before, I don't think so.) Their stories are too disturbing to write down here, not so much to me, who saw them and saw that they had survived, but disturbing to just hear the words and the events. I'll tell anybody who wants to hear more in person.

I went to the kigali genocide memorial. A very complex very difficult experience. Not so much the photographs of graves, or the skulls and bones on display, or even the story of how the genocide happened, and how organizations that could have stopped it looked away till it was too late. No, what was most disturbing is the aftermath: the people walking around dead in side, are tortured with memories, or angry and ready to take revenge, or able to find peace only in drugs or alchohol or sex. An alcholic or a drug addict will say: I survived the genocide, how can this kill me. A woman who was raped will say: My body is ruined, and my reputation and honor; why shouldn't I take what pleasure or relief that I can.

As Jean Baptiste said, the bones are just minerals; our task is to help the survivors regain their sense of humanity.

I'll end with how I started. Denise arrived, and is in fact, typing in the next cyberstall. Its good to have her here.