It's interesting how quickly conversations shift in Rwanda. One moment, I am relaxing at New Cactus, a popular hang out for NGO workers, eating pizza and laughing with my friends about the ridiculous parts of our days. Someone mentions how no one besides us would understand our jokes and the mood instantly changes. Because we all know that while no one will be able to understand our jokes, no one will be able to understand our experience at all--the funny, the difficult, the horrifying, the beauty, the people.
A wave of silence passes over the table--we all know what we are all thinking--the churches we visited days before. The churches where Tutsi fled for refuge from the genocide, believing their attackers would not commit murder in a sacred place of God. Instead, they were slaughtered in mass number, on alters, pews, the lawn, everywhere. The experience is impossible to describe, like when you take a picture of a beautiful landscape but when you print it, it doesn't fully reflect what you saw. The colors are less intense, the particular way the sunlight shines in the sky isn't shown, and the overall feeling of the experience is lost. I haven't written about these experiences because I have no words, but neither does anyone else.
Suddenly, the air at New Cactus seems a bit chillier, the lights seem overly bright, and when my food comes I'm suddenly a little less hungry. It's exhausting--all these intense conversations, but in no way less interesting or important. Our experiences here makes it almost too easy to shift from light hearted conversation to discussing the role of politics in international aid, our shame and disgust in some past US actions and lack of action, or the role of religion in Rwanda and our own lives. But when the conversation gets to be too much, someone throws out a question we all know means to change the subject (Hey! What's your favorite color? Mine's green...) We all laugh and the conversation shifts to soccer and sharing photos.
Suddenly, the air at New Cactus seems a bit chillier, the lights seem overly bright, and when my food comes I'm suddenly a little less hungry. It's exhausting--all these intense conversations, but in no way less interesting or important. Our experiences here makes it almost too easy to shift from light hearted conversation to discussing the role of politics in international aid, our shame and disgust in some past US actions and lack of action, or the role of religion in Rwanda and our own lives. But when the conversation gets to be too much, someone throws out a question we all know means to change the subject (Hey! What's your favorite color? Mine's green...) We all laugh and the conversation shifts to soccer and sharing photos.
Rwanda has been a mix of indescribable extremes--which makes even explaining what that means difficult.
No comments:
Post a Comment