The following blog was penned by a gentleman from ASYV’s corporate partner, Liquidnet Holdings Inc. and works in their Global Social Engagement Department. His blog not only covers his travels in Rwanda but a bit of history as well. We hope you enjoy reading and we would love to hear your comments.

August 13, 2007
Layover in Brussels

After a pleasant 8 hour flight from New York, I had a few hours to spend in the Brussels airport, before joining Rowley for another 8 hour flight to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. There are only 9 international flights into Rwanda each week; two from Brussels, and the rest from South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia. Brussels, capital of Belgium, is an appropriate start to the trip; for Rwanda is a former Belgium colony (independence was granted in 1962). To administer the colony, Belgium authorities pitted what they perceived to be distinct ethnic groups within the country against each other, granting more power and prestige to the minority Tutsis, whom they deemed superior to and more refined than the majority Hutus. In pre-colonial times, even though the two groups had distinct origins, according to the author Philip Gourevitch,

“Hutus and Tutsis spoke the same language, followed the same religion, intermarried, and lived intermingled, without territorial distinctions, on the same hills, sharing the same social and political culture in small chiefdos. The chiefs were called Mwamis, and some of them were Hutus, some Tutsis; Hutus and Tutsis fought together in the Mwamis’ armies; through marriage and clientage, Hutus could become hereditary Tutsis, and Tutsis could become hereditary Hutus. Because of all this mixing, ethnographers and historians have lately come to agree that Hutus and Tutsis cannot properly be called distinct ethnic groups.” (1)

But to facilitate the segregation of the population to meet their colonial needs, in 1933-34, the Belgians conducted a census in order to issue “ethnic” identity cards, which, again according to Gourevitch, “labeled every Rwandan as either Hutu (eighty-five percent) or Tutsi (fourteen percent) or Twa (one percent). The identity cards made it virtually impossible for Hutus to become Tutsis, and permitted the Belgians to perfect the administration of an apartheid system rooted in the myth of Tutsi superiority…Whatever Hutu and Tutsi identity may have stood for in the pre-colonial state no longer mattered; the Belgians had made “ethnicity” the defining feature of Rwandan existence…with every schoolchild reared in the doctrine of racial superiority and inferiority, the idea of a collective national identity was steadily laid to waste.” (2)

This erosion of a shared Rwandan identity eventually contributed to the genocide, whereby 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered. At the very start of the genocide, in April 1994, 10 Belgian troops, part of the UN mission, were killed by Hutu extremists, prompting Belgium to withdraw all of its remaining troops, allowing the Hutu extremists to continue their genocidal plans.

1. Philip Gourevitch, “We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda,” p. 47-48.
2. Ibid, p. 56-58.

August 14, 2007
Arrival in Kigali

Rowley and I arrived in Kigali without any troubles, spending an astoundingly short time in customs and retrieving our luggage amazingly quickly. I have been struck in my first few hours here in the country by just how nice parts of it are. The CIA World Fact Book on Rwanda reports an impressive GDP growth rate of 5.8%. We have seen development all over this capital city; on the drive from the airport, we passed billboards for cell phones, internet service, beer, and SUV’s, which could have appeared in the states. We also passed a recently built mall and new homes and buildings going up next to mud huts.

We’re staying at the luxurious Serena hotel, easily a world-class hotel and evidently the nicest one in the country (we had a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant with Seth, Anne, their three children, and another couple from New York). Quincy Jones owns a luxury home here in Rwanda, and Oprah has reportedly been looking at a similar property. Taye Diggs appears on the cover of the magazine left in my hotel room.

Yet even with this sense of economic expansion, the country still has far to go when you consider that per capital GDP is only $1,600 (by comparison, the US is $44,000). So while in the first few hours here I have been exposed to some of the highlights of the country’s economic development, there is growing disparity and not everyone is benefiting from this recent growth. Tomorrow we travel to Butare, in the southern area of this country. I’m sure we will be exposed to how the vast majority of Rwandans live.

August 16, 2007
Journey to Butare

I write this at nearly midnight after two (emotionally and physically) exhausting days, with frogs croaking outside my hotel window.

On Wednesday morning, we headed out to Butare, an area in southern Rwanda about two hours from Kigali. The whole country is only about the size of the state of Maryland, and with nearly 9 million people, it is the most densely populated country in Africa. Anne used the phrase “rural sprawl” to describe it, because there are really no high rises or anything much like that, and most of the housing consists of single-story (and generally one room) structures, made up of either mud bricks or sometimes cement blocks, all scattered across the countryside. Rwanda is called the land of a thousand hills, and that’s just what it is: we followed one of the few main paved roads up and down hills through twists and turns. All along the way people were walking, going about their daily tasks of carrying water or bananas, or packages (usually balanced on their heads).

The theme of our first morning was to gain an appreciation for Rwanda’s culture: we first visited the former king’s palace, which has been turned into an art museum. Next we saw a reconstruction of what the traditional king’s palace structure looked like, and then visited the national museum, which detailed the history and culture of the country pre-genocide. Next we went to Murambi, which is a memorial site which was a school under construction where 50,000 (50,000!!!) people took refuge, only to be brutally slaughtered and then dumped into mass graves. A few hundred of the bodies were exhumed and laid out on wooden benches in a few rows of unfinished buildings, fairly well preserved (in their final frightening poses) in limestone. It was beyond harrowing, and there are no appropriate words just yet to explain it. It will take quite some time to process my reactions to that. Needless to say, the experience shook all of us pretty hard.

The next day, after getting restless sleep due to the preponderance of mosquitoes buzzing about in our ears (good thing we have those Malaria pills), we got another early start to travel all the way back to Kigali for two very successful meetings with local prominent business leaders. The goal is to get Rwandan leaders interested in the project, so they can lend their support and eventually take responsibility for the ASYV’s success. We were well received by both businessmen, and are very hopeful about the support shown. Afterwards, we went to Kigali Genocide Memorial, which was another powerful experience (again, my words now would not adequately account for the impact of this experience).

Then this afternoon we had the highlight of our trip so far: a visit to a local orphanage. The program was started by two young orphans who were about 15 or 16 when they survived the genocide. Now, these two young men provide support for nearly 70 kids, aged 5 to 15, operating an impressive bakery business to help finance their work. (We sampled the bread and it was INCREDIBLE.) We were welcomed by all the smiling children, who ran up to us as soon as we got out of the cars and surrounded us. They sung us songs in English and were full of joy. It was definitely a nice balance to the intensity of the genocide that we had been learning about, and offered us hope for what a success the ASYV really will be.

Tomorrow is the groundbreaking, which will undoubtedly prove to be an amazing event.

August 16, 2007
Poetic Reflection

I previously wrote that the experience visiting the Genocide memorial sites left me at a loss for words. I still don’t have the appropriate words to share, but fortunately, Jenna (who is about to turn 15) keeps a poetry journal and agreed to share with all of you the poem she wrote after our visit to the Murambi memorial site, where 50,000 people were massacred.

Rwandan Memorial Site
By Jenna Merrin

Walking around from room to room
Sensing despair and impending doom
Seeing the bodies, shriveled and still
Seeing the way that each person was killed
Mold all around gunshot wounds to the head
Some shot in the body and then left for dead
Hits with machetes to the face and side
Infants lay frozen, [you can] see how they cried
Piles of clothing taken off of the dead
Each piece had a story — wonder what it said
French built volleyball courts over mass graves
So that no one would notice the underground caves
Small bodies buried where big holes were dug
Meanwhile the French stand on the side looking smug
The war is over - now 13 years later
Still remembering the “old friends”, “bystanders”… the traitors.

Some of the unfinished Murambi schoolhouse buildings, where hundreds of preserved corpses exhumed from the mass graves were displayed.

August 17, 2007
ASYV Groundbreaking: Restoring the Rhythm of Life

The Agahozo Shalom Youth Village is being constructed in the Rubona area of Rwanda’s Eastern Province, about a 50 minute drive outside of Kigali. On Friday, we traveled out there for the groundbreaking. To get to the village site, we turned off the paved highway to a dirt road, where we were greeted by a large welcome banner.

We then traveled along a bumpy, unpaved dirt road for about 6 miles to reach the actual village. Every 30 yards or so along this road were planted banana trees, with special decorative flowers hung from them.

Along the road, people came out of their houses to catch a glimpse of the passing caravan of SUV’s. As we had heard on other occasions as we traveled across the country, the people would occasionally shout with excitement “muzungu!” which means “white person.” As the people watched us passed, many waved to us, and we in turn waved back. After several miles of this, I couldn’t help but feel like I was in a parade. Which I guess, in a sense, we were.

When we reached the groundbreaking site, we were immediately greeted by a drum and dance troupe as we got out of the SUV’s.

Rwandans sure know how to welcome visitors; if only I got this sort of reception every time I walked into work…

The village is being built on a very large site – over 50 hectares (that’s over 125 acres) – and features absolutely stunning views. For the groundbreaking, there were several tents set up; two for guests, one for VIPs, and one for local villagers who came out in force to watch the ceremony. By the time we arrived – 30 minutes before the ceremony was set to begin – the tent set up for locals was already full and overflowing, with hundreds of people standing in rapt attention. Throughout the next two hours, people continued to stream to the site, until the crowd reached over 1,000 people. This is a view of some of the assembled crowd, looking out into the valley beyond.

At the ceremony, there were speeches by Anne, ASYV Executive Director Sifa Nsengimana, and various local officials, including the mayor, governor, and minister of education.

In between the speeches, there were more dances and songs by the Itorero, which is the Rwandan ballet dance troupe

For the groundbreaking itself, the Minster of Education removed the ASYV flag that was draped over a commemorative plaque, and then the flag was raised up a pole, which will be the center of the village.

After the ceremony, as we prepared to leave, we were surrounded by local children, who were eager to meet us.

As we got in the our vehicle, I went to take a picture of one of the children, but then more and more gathered around. After each photo I took, I turned the camera around to show the children the display screen; they were absolutely thrilled to see their image.

After a trip filled with emotional highs and lows, hearing about the effects of the worst evil that humans can inflict on each other and witnessing some of the depths of despair that people experience, it was these smiling faces that I’ll take with me. These smiles represent the hope of youth in a country that surely needs it. The ASYV will undoubtedly make a real difference in the lives of the children that will live there, who will then go on to be leaders in their communities and in turn shape the future of their entire country.