Note: Between 1999-2004 I traveled around Rwanda during research. Many things happened on my trips and it is only now that I start to share them.

As one leaves an establishment in Rwanda (a restaurant or a hotel) one must invariably prepare themselves for the onslaught of thin, hungry, dirty, scantily dressed but completely adorable children who ask for food or a few francs.  The culture at that time was still essentially Francophone – this would change quickly as the RPF presence increased.  There is little variation however: there are no fat children, none who look healthy, none who appear clean and none of them is fully dressed.  Now, being from New York, I have been approached a million different ways by people in the street: “hey buddy, got a quarter,” “got a light,” “got busfare,” “got my rent in yo pocket,” or “blow for a meal”?  You hear everything.  I have even been approached by kids who just pull your heart strings.  Literally.  They just open you up, pull out veins and start playing.

The situation here is compounded by the sheer volume of the issue.  There is no isolated child like in New York but rather there is a veritable sea of youth.  The onslaught is held back by armed guards, making the place safe for foreigners and those with resources, but once you leave the safety of the establishment – unless you have guards with you or manage to sneak to your vehicle – you have to deal with the kids.

After a while, I could take it, which I was both grateful for and troubled by.  After the umteenth child solicitation, a certain degree of callousness overcomes you in Rwanda.  I really could not function in any other way because there were simply too many children.  The problem was too daunting to contemplate.  My colleague Candace could not take it either but she decided that she was going to cave in completely – albeit reacting to only one at a time. 

Something that became obvious upon closer observation was that there was a system to the solicitation.  While you were approached by a barrage of individuals, if you interacted with one or gave something to one of the children, you were thereafter “owned” by them.  If after marking, another kid interacted with the marked outsider, then it appeared that you could be sanctioned by some regulator with a stone, stick or some harsh words.

Candace was marked by a spry little kid with eyes like midnight, a smile like sunlight and a face like the sky (vast, full of potential and haunting).  He was named Innocent like many people in Rwanda.  You could not help but want to help him.

It was absolutely amazing to see.  Upon coming out of any store on the Butare strip, Candace’s Innocent would find her.  “Madaam…  Madaam…”  He would start, tilt his head to the side and smile – hand out.  Initially, Candace would give him a franc or two but then she came up with a mini-development strategy.  First, she would work on his nutrition: a sandwich instead of a franc, a power bar or a vitamin or two.  Second, she would take him for a visit to a doctor – after the buy-in purchased with a meal.  Then she would talk about school, over a bottle of water or coke. 

Candace was all into his life and he lapped it up.  How could he not?   They both seemed to need each other and you were warmed by the connection. Amidst all the horrible things one saw in Rwanda, if just one life could be improved, things would be just a little more tolerable.  That was the idea at least.  The reality was more complex. 

You see, the children were also marked.  They did not run amok as we thought.  Over a few weeks, I managed to sneak in the back of the Made Niggaz Hair Salon and sat in the front with some people I had met before.  This allowed me to watch where the kids were hanging out as well as where Candace was coming from.

Watching the street, I could see that there were clics/groups of youth – a gaggle of little capitalistic entrepreneurs.  There were older kids as well – between 15 and 20 who seemed to run the pack.  The leader would gather the youth at the beginning of the day and pass out assignments.  Innocent’s job was seemingly Candace.  He would trail her everywhere – walking, running, hiding, waiting – always placing himself where he could be seen (which after you have been marked becomes easy somehow – it’s like there are no longer a hundred kids in a crowd, just yours). 

At the end of the day, the kids met again to hand over their goodies to their handlers, from the days catch.  There is no joyful enjoyment of the goodies.  There is no gracious handover of the piece of bread to grandma back at the old house in the bush.  Rather, grandma is dead and there is no house but there is a somber handover and reallocation.  After Candace’s giving, all Innocent does is cross the street, turn the corner into an alley and hand over everything he got.  On the way back to the street, he might take a nibble but not too much or else he might get caught.

Why give up the goodies?  Protection.  Fear.  Survival.  Numbers are the only thing that seem to keep you alive on the streets of Rwanda.  You give up to get set up and you get set up to live (not die). 

Seeing this whole process once, by mistake, Candace later mentioned to me that “oh, that’s so cute.  He’s sharing.”  I just looked at her.  She missed his submissive demeanor (it looked like someone waiting to get punished), the look on the older kid’s face of anticipation (it looked like some drug addicted fiend waiting for their fix), the eight or so kids that stood around waiting their turn (reminiscent of the first).  She even missed Innocent’s look on his face after he gave over this prize (like his lunch money was taken that day, like everyone before it – this was actually pretty accurate but the money was not just for lunch). 

At that moment, I realized that we were and were not from the same place.  Later, I realized that she needed to see Innocent share.  To see anything else would be too hard.  I, on the other hand, didn’t need anything but to see what was in front of me.  Both of us were likely wrong.  I needed more of a filter for all this stuff lest I be overcome by it and Candace needed less of one lest she be underwhelmed. 

Note: Between 1999-2004 I traveled around Rwanda during research. Many things happened on my trips and it is only now that I start to share them.

“I had a farm in Africa.” 

I swear this is how Rosamond Carr began her story.  We had traveled to one of the farthest points in Rwanda to see a genocide site, and we were told that if we were going to be over there, we should stop in and see Ms. Carr who ran an orphanage.  She was well known for she was the oldest consistently present white person in the country (even Pres. Bill Clinton buzzed through on his visit).  Over her 30+ years spent there, she had lived through a great deal: regime change, revolution, civil war, genocide, poverty, regime change, revolution, regime change and civil war. Recently, her plantation/farm had been taken from her during one of these events.  She currently lived in a house provided by Anheiser Busch – the beer people. I have no idea why.

We actually had a hard time getting to Ms. Carr, having been directed to another old white woman in the region.  This was pretty embarrassing - actually.  As we rolled up and were introduced to the roar of several hundred kids penned up behind a fence and playing soccer (for their protection or ours), we knew from Ms. Carr’s picture on the cover of her book that we had the wrong white lady.  She seemed to realize this immediately; with a shrug she said that Ms. Carr was up the road – pointing dismissively.  So as not to offend her, we asked if we could visit with her anyway.  Surprised, she gestured to her man Godfree (not his real name) and we had some tea.

Evidently, she too had been there for quite some time (not as long as Ms. Carr but for a while).  Her orphanage was larger than Ms. Carr’s.  But, lacking a best-selling book and the attending cache, her facility was less well-funded (Ms. Carr received large sums of money).  Interestingly, she was not bitter. 

After touring the facility, we pushed on, laughing about the fact that to Rwandans one ol’ white woman might be the same as another. 

Meeting Ms. Carr was a different matter entirely.  She was from a different era.  She came to Rwanda from a high-profile socialite family on the East coast of the United States with her husband.  He later left her.  Stubborn and not yet ready to leave the country, she decided to stay.  I swear this sounds like Out of Africa, the more I think about it.  There didn’t appear to be any more passion between her and her husband than between Meryl Streep and Robert Redford who were both a bit too stiff for my taste but I digress. 

As for the meeting, Ms. Carr had it all down to a tee.  You came in, met by her man Godfree (not his real name either) – a polite gentleman with white gloves, a white coat, black pants and no shoes (I kid you not).  We introduced ourselves and then were invited to sit.  Godfree brought tea and Belgian chocolates.  By that time, we had been in Rwanda a while and needed a shot of sugar, so we politely wolfed them down.

The drill was simple.  Ms. Carr literally turned to each of us and said “tell me your story” – we evidently were supposed to skip the boring parts.  Each of us complied and she delicately sat there, sipped her tea and actually appeared to listen. 

It was all pretty routine for her until someone in our group talked about where he was from – New Hampshire.  At that moment, the whole interaction changed.  It was as if there was a secret door that had been opened and only Ms. Carr and our colleague went through as the rest of us watched outside the metal gate.  It was classic: he dropped a name or mentioned a store (secret handshake noted), which caused her to glow referencing someone/someplace and they provided additional information about how it changed or stayed the same.  Never before had I seen the Northeastern uppercrust recognition dance/ritual revealed.  Ms. Carr seemed overjoyed that she could once again touch the shores of home with “her” people – she had not been back in quite some time.

Hearing it all, her stay in Rwanda had been quite something.  She talked of the troubles she had lived through and she would occasionally let something slip about how “they” (the Rwandans) needed “our” (Western/civilized) assistance or how “they” tended to have difficulties with one another.  Every now and then, Godfree would check on us.

Godfree invariably brought me back from Ms. Carr’s romantic meanderings.  Indeed, I sat there somewhat overtaken by the whole affair.  Part of me wanted to slap this ol’ racist woman; part of me wanted to listen to her tales of violence and survival; and, part of me wanted to have another piece of chocolate.  I took the latter two options. As I mentioned, I had been in the country for a while by then and needed a lil’ something sweet, a fix; my sense of righteousness was thus depleted.  Hard to fight “the man,” or “the woman” in this case, while hungry, hot and tired.

Truth be told, I was also caught by Ms. Carr’s charm. She seemed vivacious despite her age and it was infectious because she appeared to transport all of us back to her time – well, not completely for I realized that if we went back too far I would end up with Godfree in the kitchen looking at da company as well as da chocolate from a crack in the door. 

When she was done with us, Ms. Carr rose, Godfree appeared from thin air, and we signed our names in her book.  We requested photos, which she granted, posing demurely, gracefully and professionally as though she did this everyday (which, of course, she did).  Mine is provided above. 

Walking out the door, you realized that while she was in Africa, she was very much out of it.  In many ways, the world she had known changed.  Now, the weapons were bigger, migration on a larger scale, desires for rebuilding after the violence more grandiose.  At the same time, it was clear that the world she occupied had not changed at all.  Godfree had probably been serving her for years and she had a beautiful home in the middle of an amazing valley – on lease from a multi-national corporation.

She had a farm in Africa; now the farm seemed to have her.

Come to think of it, we never did see those damn kids.  Makes you wonder.


Note 1: I am sure there were kids and an orphanage.
Note 2: Ms. Carr passed in 2006.

Note: Between 1999-2004 I traveled around Rwanda during research. Many things happened on my trips and it is only now that I start to share them.

I never thought I was a white man or that people could ever see me in this way.  Well, there was that one conversation with my friend Wycuie at age 14 when I stupidly said that “my people” were French – Huguenots to be precise.  This was the only family history that had been passed to me and not knowing any better, I just mentioned this to him in the heat of some conversation.  To this, Wycuie just looked at me, said nothing about my not being French and left it alone, kinda (Wycuie had a quiet scream that he could wield against you).  I was lost then and he figured that he would let me find my way. 

I was and am an African-American..... well, mostly.  My great grandfather on my father’s side was a Choctaw or Cherokee Indian and my great grandfather on my mother’s side was white (victimizing his servant in the tradition of Strom Thurmond and Thomas Jefferson).  All of the other folks were black and thus, after my Wycuie intervention, I normally stuck with the majority.  So did all the people I interacted with throughout all aspects of my life.

This changed when I went to Rwanda.  There I was Mizungu (Me-sun-goo) – alternatively meaning: a white person, a foreigner, an outsider, money, a mark.  Now this was news to me.  I did not know I was a Mizungu until we pulled up to an orphanage in a remote part of the country.  As we got out of the car, children in the hundreds ran up from where they were playing, screaming “Mizungu, Mizungu!” 

The name/label/insult did not seem threatening.  Somehow I knew it wasn’t “hi” or “nigger,” but I did not know what it was and my interpreters were not telling me.  This was not like the time I was called “Shvartze” by Adam at Junior High School 104 in New York City and all my Jewish “friends” wouldn’t tell me what it meant as they giggled, but it was pretty damn close.

Following that experience, I picked out the word quite frequently from the babble of language that surrounded me – muttered underneath the sound of cars passing by or stepping into a market or café. 

I finally got it one day, however, when we were trying to figure out where we would have lunch.  One of my hosts started to suggest one location, but they quickly withdrew the idea, saying that I would probably not want to go there because it was Rwandan.  I responded that I was in Rwanda and why would I not want to try their food.  They said that some other Mizungu didn’t like it.  I said, “who was that person and what the hell is a Mizungu?”  They then went on to tell me that a Mizungu was someone not from Rwanda.  The other definitions came over the next few minutes.

Now, I was offended because the other person they were comparing me to was a white man from Toronto.  I went off at that point, likely overreacting because of exhaustion, mind-altering medicine and recovering from 400 years of slavery.  I was like, “do you have any idea how insulting that is to an African-American.  I may not have come to Africa to find myself but I sure didn’t come here to get lost.”  [note: I have no problems with either white people or Toronto]

We then had a long conversation about race relations in the West.  Although white Canadians are generally better than American whites on many dimensions when it comes to racism and discrimination, it is still offensive to tell an African American that they are like some anglo-canuck.  “I mean damn,” I continued, “you all are going to have one hell of a time incorporating into the global market if you lump together black people from Manhattan with white people from Toronto.”

Accepting the point (after several days of returning to the issue), my hosts and I went through different ways of qualifying Mizungu to allow for some nuance (otherness with adjectives, as it were).  The top contenders were: NeoMizungu, Blazungu (my favorite) and CocoaMizungu.   Acknowledging that Kinyarwanda is a bit more resistant to innovation than English, we laughed and they said they would try to accommodate my request.

Later on the trip, we were at a museum of Rwandan history and art.  After greeting the attendant, the host paid and walked through the little gate.  After greeting the attendant in the proper Rwandan manner, I pulled out some money and then asked my host some question about someone that we were supposed to meet later.  Upon hearing me speak English, the attendant looked kind of pale and asked my host if I was Mizungu.  He smiled and said yes, afterwhich my fee was tripled - literally, in my face.  Immediately I was pissed, talking about how that wasn’t fair.  Evidently, I greeted the attendant so well and they were used to people coming back to Rwanda from all over the world, I was briefly able to pass.  When I realized that for a second I was an African, I corrected my tone, gladly paid the high fee and went in to see some ancient huts, the Tutsi lineage as well as some assorted historical artifacts from the region. 

Although we both kind of left the topic alone, the Mizungu thing stayed with me; how could it not?  I heard it daily.  As is my way, I started to ponder the idea and make jokes about it.  Actually, after a while and observing stupid little things that foreigners did in Rwanda, I thought that a good comic strip in the locale paper could be called “Oh, Those Crazy Mizungus.”  The show would be set in a school or a bar, hotel, around a travel guide or interpreter who would interact with a wide variety of Mizungus.  As they interacted with them, they would invariably do something inappropriate and when that happened, the whole cast would stop and say “Oh, Those Crazy Mizungus.”  It couldn’t lose.  Several episodes came to mind: working through lunch, coming to places on time, tanning by the pool or misunderstanding the logic behind effective bargaining for a mask. The sheer number of episodes was a source of constant amusement. The thought of this almost made me forget that for a while they thought I was a white man... almost. 

Note: Between 1999-2004 I traveled around Rwanda during research. Many things happened on my trips and it is only now that I start to share them.

We pulled up (Kelly, Carola and myself), like we did to most places in Rwanda.  Twist after twist, went the land of a thousand and one hills.   Along the way, one saw faces, cows, some hacking of weeds (which kind of sent shivers down your spine when you thought about it), someone sitting underneath a tree and then, without warning, the jungle parted and then you are shot out into a clearing.  Before us lay a flat area but, as always, we are surrounded by about 40-50 hills of different heights, inclines and distances, dotted with little huts and revealing different agricultural plots. 

Getting out of the car and walking up to the first building, we saw something akin to afro-industrial housing: scrap metal ceilings, brick walls, old wooden doors with new metal locks.  Except for the first building (the one we were approaching), all were lined up in 3 rows of 4 buildings – grouped in a square plot, with a few scattered buildings at the periphery. 

Our guide told us that was a memorial here honoring those killed by genocide in 1994.  This was why we were there and, after reading hundreds of testimonies, journal articles and books, I eagerly approached; to see, to feel, to record, to begin to understand.  After walking closer, I saw a [plaque]: on this site, 11,000 people were killed (on April 11th).  The magnitude of the killing was on the larger side of what took place during the 100 days associated with the genocide and interstate/civil war (subject of another post perhaps).  That such a peaceful place could be associated with the murder of so many people however seemed unbelievable.

At the plaque, we were approached by a man.  Dressed in a brown long sleeve shirt, grayish pants and no shoes, he limped toward us, his body significantly contorting with the left step.  To keep his balance, his right arm shot out at an angle – never quite in the same place.  What came to mind was one of the zombies, the undead, you see in old horror films: slow, misshapen, edging forward by sheer force of will.  Unlike the movies, however, this character was very much alive. 

As the man came closer, our guide greeted him and then we were introduced one at a time (his name was Innocent – a common Rwandan name).  Innocent was very soft spoken and thus you had to lean in to hear him. Although he spoke Kinyarwandan with almost no English, he talked directly to us, prompting me to pay attention like I understood what was being said. 

Innocent’s most noticeable feature, after the soulful eyes and a radiant, if haphazard, smile was the scar that moved from the top of his head around to the top of his throat.  Seeing it, you just jumped back inside thinking, “wow, his head was almost chopped off.”  We were told that Innocent was one of the people who survived the killing here, left for dead.  He stayed in this place to show others what had happened.  He stayed because he had no other place to go.  After a second (waiting for the translation to be completed), he looked at us – one at a time, turned and walked to the first building next to where we were standing. 

We followed, unsure.  Our guide said he would wait for us by the entrance.  “There would be no words,” he said.  The three of us just looked at each other wondering if he had misspoken, if we misheard or he was perfectly describing what we were about to experience.  

Innocent moved quickly, opening the door to the first building.  As he turned the lock, he motioned for us to go in and he moved on to the other buildings.  There is just nothing that describes the contents of the room.  Standing there, your senses were just overwhelmed.  There were rows of petrified white bodies (skeletons covered with lie), caught in what appears to be their last position in life, now death.  It was like the pictures I had seen of the victims of Pompeii but you knew that this was recent and that unlike Pompeii the earth here did not convulse and destroy the beings that lay before us.  Rather, it was other humans that did this, some of whom were still in the vicinity.  The positions of the bodies varied.  Some were covering their heads.  Some were gasping (jaws open).  Most were completed bare but some still had little patches of black hair attached to their skulls.  All were curled up in some way – into themselves and some into each other as if embracing.  It was a sea of death contained in a room no larger than 10 by 10. 

Gazing at fingers, arms, heads, hips and feet, I became lost trying to ascertain where one body began and where the others ended.  After a while, I no longer tried.  Later still, I remembered to breathe and at the inhale, the stench of the lye flooded my mouth, lungs and soul.  Set to vomit, I had to return my eyes away, looking upward.  There, serving as the back wall and affixed somehow to the ceiling and the side walls, I saw a UN light-blue tarp. As the tarp blew upward with the breeze, the bodies just sat there, unprotected, open (telling in so many ways).  At this moment, I also realized how many more rooms there were and that I had not even moved from my first step, into the first room.  Innocent could be seen busily moving from door to door – opening everything. 

After what felt like hours of this, we all walked back to the car not nearly as spryly as we had arrived, not nearly as innocent or young.  I have not been innocent or young for quite some time but I have never been so thoroughly tainted and aged in such a short time than on that day.  As we reached the exit, Innocent asked if we wanted to sign “the book.”  Although numb and in some type of shock at the time, there was something about how he asked – something like a desire for acknowledgment and solace that moved me back from wherever I was.  “Of course,” I said and he went off to get it.  The three of us stood there awkwardly, avoiding each other.

Upon his return and seeing the book, I must admit that it was not at all what I expected.  Clearly someone had spent a great deal on it.  It was not old, small or handmade; rather, it was new, about 1,500 pages and very well crafted.  Turning the pages, looking for an empty one, the names and places were not limited and geographically concentrated.  People came from all parts of the globe.  What individuals wrote washed over me as they were all similarly influenced by the place.  Somewhat taken aback, I could think of nothing to write but one word – “love”, then another – “one.”  I was then caught trying to figure out how to best capture what went through me at the moment which was not a Bob Marley song or something that Richard Bach had scribbled.  To do so would have been to trivialize it, this, me as well as Innocent and the others.  This was some cathartic experience where my being called for some significance, some verbal monument, some marking but I was unable to express anything. 

I stepped away from the book as if it had offended me in order to allow the others to write something, which they did.  As tears rolled down my face, my mind moved back over the buildings, the bodies and the smell.  In the distance, I saw others begin to approach where we were standing, the hills literally coming alive.  As I stepped back to the book, I did the only thing that I could think of: I outlined my hand and wrote “One Love.” 

Upon reflection, Marley and Bach did not trivialize the moment.  Rather, they were the moment and I was denying it.  These individuals had touched me, giving me the vocabulary to see and sense.  When my being sought an expression to communicate, to commemorate, it made sense that it would bring them forward.  They were, like the words in the drawn hand, contained within me – imprinted.  They remained and now they would be remaining. 

As we turned to go, I saw the people from the surrounding hills getting closer, then closer.  I must admit to having mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, I wanted to meet them, ask them questions about what happened here, what they had gone through and what they had done.  On the other hand, I was scared to death of what their answers might be, what questions they might direct to me in turn, but perhaps what troubled me the most was that there appeared to be far too many machetes still lying on the ground.  


Note: Between 1999-2004 I traveled around Rwanda during research. Many things happened on my trips and it is only now that I start to share them.