It is coming: the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan violence of 1994 (i.e., the interstate war, the civil war, the genocide, the sexual violence and some random wilding or, the genocide and civil war - depending upon who you are listening to).  Yes, it has been 20 years
and yes it is going to be quite something.  Much has happened over the last 20 years and much has happened over the last 10 as it relates to what we have come to understand about what happened. Some of it is consistent but much of it is not. We will get to more of that as the event approaches.  Look for the relaunch of www.genodynamics.com - your one-stop research site for the rigorous study of Rwandan political violence of 1994.

For now, I wanted to set forth some things that you should consider whenever anyone (including me) starts to talk about the topic. View them as the 12 things to help you understand Rwandan Political Violence as you read/see anything over the next few weeks on the internet, in newspapers, on tv, in magazines, on blogs as well as tweets:

1) What type of violence is being discussed: e.g., interstate war, civil war, genocide, sexual violence, random violence?  These have different definitions (e.g., see Meredith Sarkees and Frank Wayman and the late David Singer, Doug Lemke and David Cunningham, the late Charles Tilly or this cool special issue relevant to the topic), different causes and different implications.

2) When did the violence of interest start and how far back should one look for an origin - what date specifically?  One could start looking in April 1994, 1990, 1959, the early 1900s or during the formation of Rwanda-Burundi (they were lumped together in the beginning).

3) Who was involved in the conflict and who participated in the different forms of violence?  People tend to just combine actors together glossing over important differences: All Hutus, all Tutsis, Northern Hutus, Central Hutus, Tutsi that were in Rwanda prior to 1994, Tutsi that were outside of Rwanda after 1960.

4) Where were these people in the beginning of april and why?  In Kigali, in Washington DC, in Paris, in Detroit, in Uganda, in Butare, in Kibuye, etc.

5) Who benefitted the most from conflict and violence?  Strange to think about it but people do not engage in violence unless they get something out of it.  What did people get though: e.g., money, safety, territory/property, friendship, psychological satisfaction, banana beer or a combination of factors?  Did motives/benefits shift over time?

6) Who acted from positions of "strength" (i.e., they had choices, were conscious of what they were deciding, had resources and tactical advantage via weaponry/training) and positions of "weakness"?  Some actors might have been coaxed/conned/intimidated into acting.  Some might have known precisely what they were up to.

7) What evidence is one using to answer the questions above and where does it come from?  Researchers could use surveys, a census, newspapers, human rights records, government reports, satellite, forensic records, interviews and focus groups. Remember, stating is not the same as proving, all methods have advantages/ disadvantages. A good piece will tell you what they did, how they did it, what is good about what was done and what is deficient.  This is important because almost all people know as well as any avid viewer of the tv show Law and Order: Special Victims will attest: eyewitness testimony is highly problematic. This is the principle source of information regarding most events in Rwanda.  There must be discussion about what efforts were taken to assure that this human testimony was validated in some way.

8) Is there an alternative account of relevant events and was this considered in any way shape or form?  We must all be careful about being led down a particular pathway as a function of what source we choose to believe.  Ian Lustick warns us about this problem in his: "History, Historiography, and Political Science: Multiple Historical Records and the Problem of Selection Bias".  

9) What is the perspective, position and potential bias of the author/speaker (connection to perpetrators, victims, rebels, governments).  I talk about this in my book "Media Bias, Perspective and State Repression" but Akira Kurosowa does a much better illustration in his brilliant film Rashomon.

10) What was done (specifically) and against whom?  Now, you figure that this would be the first thing I would mention but part of the difficulty in prior research and discussion is that we did not seriously address the issues mentioned above. One cannot address this question until they have addressed the ones above and you should not trust anyone who does not address them.

11) How did violence progress and move throughout the country?  This helps us better understand who did what to whom and why but it also helps us understand where help is/was needed as well as who got services.
 
12) Does the relevant piece mention what has transpired in and around rwanda since 1994 in terms of prosecutions for crimes, other violent behavior (e.g., invasions, purges, assassinations, questionable deaths), political development, democratization/ autocratization, asylum and migration? If they do, please remember to ask the first 9 questions of this work as well.

More on Rwanda coming coon.  

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 seen bars on windows, houses with gates as well as armed guards, even a dog or two at an opening of a fence, but Rwanda was quite different.  For those that had and wanted to keep their stuff, there were armed guards with machine guns and bats with nails in them and the walls were eight to ten feet high, topped with pieces of broken glass as well as barbed wire.  Now, these were not ordinary pieces of glass; they were immense shards, jagged and multicolored of about two by three inches a piece.  They stretched upward from the wall like a thousand little knives, sharpened to pointed perfection. 

The combination of all the factors struck me as bizarre but especially the last.  Would not the barbed wire do so much damage that the glass really served no purpose, I thought?  Well, yes, probably but this was not the point.  Barbed wire was not part of the average Rwandan’s life whereas most would be familiar with what broken glass could do. 

On entering a wealthy Rwandan home, one would see immense lawns, the shadow cast over the remaining wall – moonlight bouncing off the shards in between the beams of light like a prism of (in)security.  The house was huge but sectioned off – more defensible spaces I suppose.  We were led to the living room, greeted by the Ms. (not the Misses – different house, different story) who was adorned in a stunning shock of color and excess.  While we could not see the rest of the house and were offered no tour, one could see eight doors on different sides of the room.  We were in the center of the maze, very fitting I thought.

The house was elegant, tastefully sparse, decorated with a few masks, fabrics, paintings and pottery from different parts of Africa.  Before sitting down, Mason, myself and Francis (another colleague from Maryland on the project) to see the different pieces of art a little closer.  At some point, the Ms. excused herself (she needed to check something in the kitchen), leaving through one of the doors.  We looked at the handmade crafts (the chairs, table and bowls) and then looked at each other.  By any standard, this place was amazing.  The Ms. blew in and out about five times in one door and out another.  By the time we turned around the table was filled with food of all kinds – the ripest of fruit, the tenderest of meat, the sweetest of smells, some potato-like dish and something else that I had never seen.  Very quickly, we knew that we were in for one hell of a meal.  The four of us started eating out of the handmade bowls, later being joined by others – emerging from the different doors.  Every now and then I glanced though the window and out to the wall, seeing someone with a machine gun walk past. 

The next day we walked through some street in Kigali (the capital and home to the hotel in the movie Hotel Rwanda), closely navigating near the restaurant fronts whose guards kept the hundreds of beggars and money-changers at bay. One could see several hundred more in the cracks of the city (between buildings, in alley ways, on the hills).  The street was a buzz with activity, as always.  There were a million and one colors, smells, accents, faces and outfits.  Some wore three-piece suits, some wore only an old piece of African cloth.  Interestingly none wore shorts, despite the ridiculous heat.  This was considered rude and left for Mizungus.  Given the heat, being viewed as an outsider essentially sucked on every dimension but this one.

As we walked, three cars blew down the street, moving faster than anything else.  One of them seemed to miss everyone by inches and then as quickly as it turned onto the street, it turned and moved toward the bank.  Never slowing down, the car came to a screeching halt.  Guards came up on either side and someone in a fabulous two-piece suit stepped out.  If I had to guess, I would say Armani - all black, well-tailored.  More guards showed up and now with about six people on either side the man walked toward the building.  After he was inside, more guards came out, opened the door to the car and then three more individuals came out – one looking more important than the next.  Greetings were made and then they all entered the building.

We asked our guide: who was that?  To this, he only responded: “there are many in Rwanda with a great deal of money. That was obviously one of them.”  We looked at each other and smiled.

Sitting down for lunch across the street from the bank, behind an open fence, three guards, two machine guns and a big stick, I tried to pinpoint my feelings.  I had felt all this before but could not find the moment.  Then I remembered.  On one street in New York city, a homeless woman walked up to a bank deposit drawer, opened it, pulled down her pants, leaned back and furrowed her brow as she took a dump.  At the same time, some guy with an equally beautiful suit and amazing briefcase under his arm walked out of the bank and into a limousine.  The two most likely did not see one another but through me they occupied the same space and that cohesion as well as tension was tremendously unsettling.  How could the two exist in the same space?  What was I supposed to do with that information?  How was I supposed to ignore it?  Why was I allowed/guided to see it?  How could such stark differences exist?  Did they?  How could the car pass through the crowd like a ghost?  Which one was dreaming – the one or the other?  Did it run through the crowd or over it and I just was not able to see the poorer victimized?  What would happen if the bars were not there or the guards or the glass?  Would there be some Hobbesian “free for all”?  Was I not seeing one already? 

Too much thinking.  Where the hell is my tea?

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.
 

After several weeks of reparations and negotiation, we met Innocent at the café – he was a member of an organization that advocated for those victimized during the violence. Innocent made an amazing impression.  He was intense, soft spoken, present and skeptical.  Our conversation started as many did with translations of introductions, then it was revealed that he spoke English.  As many Rwandans, he did not think he spoke well enough and thus preferred not to but upon hearing him, it was clear he spoke better English than most Americans.

Innocent gave us “the” history lesson about how everything got to this point.  He discussed the structure of the ancient kingdom with their fluid conception of Handbags and Teabags, the degree of formalism introduced by the Belgians – essentially freezing the socio-ethnic divisions, the discrimination of the Teabag minority against the majority Handbag and then the violence as well as discrimination against the majority Handbags against the Teabag minority. This was done with alarming speed as if he had done this a hundred times – which of course he probably had.

All this was background.  His interest lay in telling us what happened after the killing stopped. 

What he described was the growth of a survivors network: first, the victims of one massacre came together in a church, others in a school, others in someone’s house – all began to come back together.  In these cells individuals attempted to recapture their lives: healing, talking, helping each other find food, shelter, information, peace, pieces. 

After a while (over the course of a year or so) an initiative was made to bring all of the cells together and the organization that was formed out of this effort was called Ibuka – a Non Governmental Organization which represented all of the Tutsi victims. 

The story of the organization was told matter-a-factly with no emotion or deviation.  Interrupted by a question or statement, Innocent just continued.  It was clear that we were meant to hear everything.  It was clear that he was meant to tell us this, in the way that he told it.  He assumed that we knew nothing about his country or that, if we did, we knew the wrong stuff. When he was finished, we sat there exhausted; yet, somewhat clearer for the journey.

Innocent’s position/role in the organization was complex.  He was a lawyer by training and wanted to bring justice to those who had suffered.  This was not some abstract thing for Innocent.  He knew who killed his wife, child and father.  The story he recounted for us was detailed but told in the same tone used to explain Rwandan history – factual, clear, direct from the soul but without affect.  I didn’t expect him to cry or anything.  I was probably teary-eyed enough for everyone in the bar.  I did expect something.  He gave nothing. 

He would make the guilty pay but he wanted to use the law to do it.  Al and I were from a society that would have respected this position but somehow we didn’t understand what Innocent had in mind.  Here, we rely upon the law and police because we generally don’t know who did the crime.  If we knew, I always thought, then we might be interested in/willing to address it ourselves.  Despite all of our differences, Al agreed. 

Innocent then went on to argue that if Rwandans took this path, they would never advance. Al and I sat humbled.  Rwandans constantly put you in your place; somewhere that was not quite where you thought it was but clearly not where they were.

Innocent was not quite done. He did not believe in the system that had been created to find, evaluate and judge the accused – this was especially the case for lower-level offenders who were being tried in informal community processes called Gacaca (“Justice in the Grass”).  He identified that the judges were trained for trials in a matter of weeks.  They were frequently part of the same group that did the killings.  There were no court recorders and thus people could lie; all things were done in the open – in the grass, and anonymity was absent.  There was little communication between courts and thus the fact-checking as well as inappropriate behavior was near impossible to catch. 

What was one to do in this situation?  Collect information, eat, sleep, try to find meaningful work, interact with the friends as well as family that remain and wait.  Wait for justice.  Wait for peace.  Wait for an opportunity.  The smallest things in life frequently provide the greatest clues for why to continue living it.

From 2003-2011 I was engaged in a research project that took me back and forth to diverse parts of Gujarat, India.  These are some of my stories from those days.

We traveled far into the deepest recesses of Gujarat; far from Ahmedabad, the mega-city that it was.  Our journey took us to places where blacks (African Americans) had never been – at least not physically.  They were represented in some manner, through the television and radio - even the internet had not yet made it here yet.  Exactly which African Americans made it out there (i.e., were known to the locals) was the subject of the next story.  Interestingly, my presence resulted in a bizarre chain of events as we evidently had someone running between the villages announcing that … "Mike Tyson" is coming.

In the first village, I was asked if I was Mike Tyson (the boxer once known for knocking everyone out in 5 seconds but later known for biting a piece of Evander Hollyfield’s ear).  I said no.  My name is Chris.

In the second village, it was assumed that I was Mike Tyson and I was asked how my fighting career was going.  I said that I did not fight and repeated my name.  They did not buy it.  They just thought I was trying to be low key.

By the sixth village, I gave up the Chris business and played along and, asked to do something, I threw a jab and everyone smiled, cheering “Iron Mike, Iron Mike, Iron Mike.”  I wondered how they knew the phrase.  You are never quite sure what gets where or how.  Regardless, the crowd was happy; the former world champion had visited their village. 

At the tenth village, someone asked me if I would stop a local bully.  It was said that he looked like me.  I was a little scared and even a little tempted but I did not pursue the matter.  Although everyone around me seemed 4 foot 3, you never know what the Indian Iron Mike would look like or what he would do when challenged.  

At the thirteenth village, it was said that I bit the ears of my opponents when I fought.  I denied it and said that when I fight, I fight clean.  These were just rumors from those that feared me.

At the sixteenth village, it was thought that I just bit off people’s ears when I wanted to – in and out of the ring.  The children would not greet me and the older folks kept to themselves. 

Upon our arrival in the seventeenth village, we found that it was completely empty.  Having heard that Mike Tyson, the man-eater, was coming the villagers had vacated.  Realizing where this was going and that it could only get worse, we headed back to Ahmedabad.  



Note: I admit that the last village was not completely empty and that it was due to my presence.  There had been some local incident and people had moved to do something.

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 wound through Rwanda like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now (cue the appropriate Doors song), but overground in an SUV and not a boat.  We had traversed most of the country on the way to lake Kivu – a huge mass of water at the westernmost part of Rwanda. To get there we drove seemingly forever.  The actual distance itself wasn’t that long.  Rwanda is actually pretty small.  The distance is magnified however by the amount of back and forth that one has to do in order to go a little way forward.  Rwanda is definitely the land of a thousand hills – small ones.  Rwanda is also the land of 500 turns and a million shadows. 

As you pass one locale (a hill or one person), you are seemingly held in place as your path winds around them.  Imagine sitting in a swivel chair as your landscape changes.  There, see the partially covered hut on the left, then a door and a banana tree, then quickly you see someone carrying a bucket, some movement in the bush and a cow, then behind the hut are 15 people carrying boxes up another winding path. 

Rwandan travel is almost like telling someone to observe what you can as best you can.  Fathom it, you will not.  What is contained here had defied all others. 

Clearly, I did not expect to go there, see things and understand.  I was skeptical of this political ethnographic approach.  New York had taught me that people were duplicitous, self-serving, lying fuckers as did the time I spent with my father after I was sent to get an idea of life from a man's perspective (another story).  I was well aware of the many tales spun by African Americans when academicians showed up to comprehend the negro like in “All Our Kin” (the problematic book by Carol Stack).  It is quite different to see it though; to look at something that you know you will not fathom – in the flesh.

We paused on the roadside at one point, exhausted and sore. We had just passed the part of the “road” where the Italians had stopped and the Chinese began.  This was one of those stories of development, high politics and intrigue where one international developer was brought in to do a job at the same time some other international developer was brought in to do another, each completed their roads up until a certain point.  Between the two stretches, was an earthern, rocky section that lay prepped for someone to finish but no one was coming.  Around you, you saw Rwanda in its splendor: hills, ridiculous vegetation (anything seemed like it could grow there).

At some point, we began a descent; like in a plane you could feel the pull of the decline.  You knew that the earth had selected a direction and you were following it.  Through the hills, down the roads, past the people, past the cows and past the trees. 

Then, just as quick, we passed a military base.  The hardened faces of hundreds rolled past us on the side of the road; hungry, angry, dirty, exhausted and armed to the teeth.  We were looked over thoroughly.  I was shocked at the sight – both theirs and mine, but it all happened so fast.

Moreover, any thoughts I had about who and what we had just seen were soon overwhelmed by the sight of lake Kivu.  It was immense, quiet and set against a large hill/mountain.  Imagine some Lord of the Rings like shire with a lake and that should do it.  Don’t forget the base of Orks nearby.

At the lake’s edge, before the pier, was a front office of sorts and to the side one could see a disparate collection of small buildings. Once we got to the front desk, we had the usual greetings.  Keys were distributed from a jar – seemingly random but after everyone had grabbed one it was clear there was nothing random about it.  We found ourselves all over the compound/resort, seeing each other walk off in different directions.  One there, one there, another there, one all the way over there and one there.  We were either being given space or being spaced.  These were matters to be pondered later.  It was midday and hot as hell.

In ten minutes, we were at the lake, ready to jump in.  I hesitated for a moment, looking at currents, floating stuff and huge insects.  If there were ever a place where great man-eating turtles from the 8th century or prehistoric times existed, this would be it.  Why are there no guests here?  Where are the Rwandans?  Additionally, if there were a group of people who seemed like they would let you swim in a radioactive or prehistoric playground, to be riddled with cancer or eaten, I would put the guy in reception at the top of the list. 

Now, truth be told, I was very sympathetic to the foreign sacrificial lamb idea; "get the freak out of my country with all your wealth, attitude and strange ways", kind of made sense to me.  It reminded me of the time when I was in Bimini and wanted the residents to burn down the local Playboy hotel and casino in disgust after I saw how the people working there were treated.  At the same time, I was not up for being sacrificed.  I was the sympathetic accidental tourist scholar activist outcast representative of the Western world.

As I stood there in my shorts, baking in the afternoon sun, Mason, Jenni and Candace (not their real names) jumped in.  They had been there before and had evidently overcome any fears.  After I saw that they did not get eaten and two Rwandans went for a dip, I felt that it was alright and jumped in.  The water was beautiful, warm and soothing.  At one point, I thought I felt something rub against me but I was just getting out anyway, so it was cool.  Looking back, I did not see anything.

Later, we had some local fish and then went to our rooms.  It was late, I was exhausted and somehow unsettled.  The room was boxlike with a small window in the bathroom; enough for my head to stick out but nothing more.  To get in and out of the room, you had to use your key. You could not open the door even from the inside without it.  I found this odd because it meant you needed to know where your key was at all times.

Now, I have stayed in some pretty messed up rooms in my day.  There was the red roof hotel in Atlanta with Darren Davis back in the day before we got tenure complete with bullet holes, stained bed-covers and thieving porters who waited for you to go to dinner so that they could rifle through your luggage.  Never, however, did I feel like the structure of the building and the physical landscape was constructed to get you.

With these thoughts weighing on me, I managed somehow to get to sleep (holding the key in my hand).

At about 2:30am, the key fell from my hand and bounced on the floor – waking me.  Chest heaving, I moved my legs over the side of the bed and in the distance, I heard something. 

There were drums, singing and occasionally screams or was that a yelp.

My heart raced as I rose to put on my clothes (in the dark, not wanting to signal my location).  I felt that I had to get out.  I looked for the key in a frantic 45-second interval. 

The sounds coming from the distance continued to grow.

I ran into the bathroom, remembering there was a window but forgetting the size.  Realizing that I could not get out that way, I returned to the front room. 

The drumming grew louder. 

I fumbled around, trying to find the door and then the keyhole.  After a few minutes, I opened the lock, pushed open the door and ran into the woods – directly next to my cabin.  Once there I knelt, feeling around for a stick or anything I could use to protect myself and listened for the attackers.  If they came, from which direction would it be?  Where is the parking lot?  Where is the water? 

A scream in the distance – gutteral, pained. 

I couldn’t believe I was going to go out like this.  There is no phone.  I couldn’t remember the way back to Butare, so even if I got off this compound, I had no idea how to get back.  There is no swimming across the lake.  It is absolutely huge.  I am completely screwed.  Man, I thought, there is so much that I wanted to do but I had to be all let me help humanity like and go to Africa, to get killed in some backwater, lakeside cabin.  Never go to the empty lakeside resort, never go to the empty lakeside resort – I chastised myself.

More drums.

Then after what seemed like hours of reflecting on my life and the paths chosen/not taken, I wondered: what’s the difference if I get out of here?  I am on the other side of the country. 

More drums, more screams. 

What the hell is that?  I have no Kinyarwandan and if I did know any my accent would give me away.  I have little money and a big Mizungu tattoo on my forehead.  Mosquitoes started in on me.

Wow, I thought, no one will find my body out here.  How will they recognize me?  With that thought, I went back into the room for my passport – for identification purposes and perhaps to escape to another country.  Stealthily, I ran, leaned up against the wall and snuck into the room, felt around for what I needed and slipped back out to the woods.  I repeated this again for my money – for bribes and a new identity to escape the dragnet.  And, I returned to the room a final time for my jacket – it was actually cold (surprising to me because I was in Africa after all). 

Damn, I thought, which way do I go?  At that point, I really wished that the boyscouts in Manhattan had taught me something other than how not to get beat up in Central Park.  I started out to go find the others, but realized that for me to save them, I would have to go from room to room.  On top of that, all the buildings looked alike.  I could be looking for quite some time.  Oh, they are also likely locked in.  They would all have to find their keys to let themselves out. 

A gun shot. Then laughter.  I pushed back further into the bush, squeezing my little stick and what was left of my dignity.

I turned further on myself even more. Why was I there?  Why did I come to such a place?  My heart continued to race.  Should I try to swim?  Where does the bush lead to – along the mountainside?  Are there lights anywhere?  It was pitch black.

Trucks were moving toward the compound.  Another shot and some screaming.

I took a deep breath, swatted a mosquito that hit the motherload of blood circulation.  I then got really quiet and wondered if this was how it had been back in 1994 when individuals heard people coming for them.  I had considered every possible way out of the compound and took none for I was paralyzed with fear.  Individuals back then would have known more about the local terrain but they were also cut off and isolated. 

The trucks continued to get closer and then they seemed to pass by, without incident.

Listening, I could hear talking now, music (other than drums) and I saw the distant glow of lights.  The soldiers were just letting off some steam and partying.  It must have been horrible back then, I thought, standing upright for the first time in hours. 

After some deep breaths, the coolness of the breeze and the passage of time, I returned to my room.  It was 6:48 – damn.  I closed the door, locked myself in, splashed some water on my face and settled back into bed – fully clothed.  I had made a mess and things were all over the place in the room but I figure I would just deal with it later. 

When I woke up, the second time, at about 8:30, I was exhausted from my early morning activities.  I then realized the source of my rambling thoughts and delusions.  There sat my malaria medicine and very clearly I remember someone saying that it gave them vivid dreams.  At the realization, all I could do was laugh, unzip my combat gear and prepare to go for a dip in the lake.  Damn the creatures below.

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 part of my deal for going to Rwanda, I was supposed to teach some students at the National University of Rwanda at Butare about research methods. It was not exactly clear what I was supposed to do – like everything else.  That was cool though – I was getting a trip to Africa and I would be the first in the family to go there. 

Now, I have a love-hate relationship with teaching.  I love the engagement, the pursuit, watching young minds come alive – preparing to struggle, challenge, overthrow and prosper.  I hate the machine that education has become however: most of my colleagues lectured and did not interact much in the classroom, students want an A and most acquired them (the essence of my teaching method was Socratic with a healthy line of Dewey), most didn’t want to read and most couldn’t write – I’ll just stop there.

The situation had started to slowly kill me.  Every now and then I would come across a jewel of a student: engaged but reflective, hardworking but carefree, troubled but helpful, young but old.  These had become fewer and far between.

In response, I had started to pull back – moving to the dark side: research (or, was it the other way around?).  Regardless, I felt it creep in: fewer written assignments (a pain to grade), fewer books assigned (a pain to pull out of them), fewer questions (more talking to as opposed to talking with for the students weren’t interested). 

Being asked to teach in Rwanda was thus a mixed blessing.  I figured I would give it a shot.

Once in the classroom, it was a different story.  The classroom existed in what looked like a military bunker made of brick and wire fences.  There was a basketball court in front of the Rector’s office (the American equivalent of the University President), a field for “experimentation,” dormitories and other classrooms – all surrounded by jungle and barbed wire. 

The students ranged from ages 18 to 40.  They had very different backgrounds: some had fought in the civil war (not a handbag in sight), some had been abroad the whole time and had just returned and some had been in Rwanda hiding.  Some spoke English, most spoke French and all spoke Kinyarwandan. All the students were neatly dressed and were respectful to a fault.  All had cell phones and grumbled when they were asked to turn them off.  This was somewhat similar to the states until I realized that cell phones here were a life-line in the literal sense.  How could you ask a student to stay off their cell in Rwanda when the next revolution could be coming over the airwaves?  The immediacy simply trumped the courtesy.  We settled on them applying a higher criteria for accepting a call: it had to be “important.”  Over time, they got the point.

All the students were surprised to find out that their instructor was an African American.  They had never seen one and thus whenever they had a chance, they would ask questions about my life and my take on America.  This came later though. At first, they just sat there quizzically.

Socrates did not come to Rwanda with me nor did he already reside there for me to run across.  The Rwandese were used to lecturing.  They were used to being told what to do and how to do it.  Unlike the deferent to authority machines discussed in the Western media, however, once the students were given a chance, prompted and made to feel comfortable, they were full of questions and challenges. 

Interestingly, there was a certain degree of skepticism about statistics and numerical representation –the “you can say anything with numbers” variety. Walking by a chart plotting nose size against ethnic identity that I saw on a wall in a nearby library (provided by the Belgians but replicated elsewhere), I understood how they could come to be this way.  Nevertheless, we pushed on.

What struck me most about the students was that the “children are the future” stuff we always hear in the states is a genuine reality in Rwanda.  These kids literally are the future and much of the present.  These kids are not going to be the farmers who made up the majority of society.  They were going to be the lawyers, entrepeneurs, generals and Rectors who ran it.  They know it and you can see it in their faces, which leads to a certain degree of snootiness.  Now, it is not like interacting with kids from the uppercrust American institutions (Yale, Harvard, Stanford, etc.) but it is in the same ballpark; or, neighborhood of the ballpark. 

These kids had to get it right and so did everyone around them.  Some of this was interest driven but some of it was external.  They were handpicked the way athletes had been in the former Soviet Union, given everything to become the very best that they could be so that they could later serve the state who would continue to allow them to be the very best. Kinda like “Be all that you Can be – or else.”

But, this was not necessarily good for education and knowledge building.  Could you learn something which you thought was used to hold you back?  Could you take it in but not be taken over?  The students evaluated everything that came out of my mouth by some metric of state and nation-building.  Will this help Rwanda?  How?  Can we extract something that is useful from this America?  And, so it went for weeks.

The student’s intensity, the little state and nation-building exercise, the weight of their expectations were energizing.  It was not like interacting with the kids back home at the University of Maryland (where I taught at the time) who were only excited when class was over, moving on to the next mediocre experience.  These kids were hungry.  It was not like interacting with the kids from Ivy League schools either, who now walked around Rwanda as consultants, humanitarian aid workers, bankers and cultural attaches with a combination of derision, awe and compassion on a stick.  Rwanda was off.  Rwanda was raw.  The students followed suit.  Some eye of the tiger like stuff. 

But, if they were the tiger, then who was I: the meat, the zoo keeper, the visitor getting too close to the cage or was I just another animal in the cage daydreaming while someone slipped a needle under my fur to keep me calm and unpredatory?  The students seem to have the same quizzical look directed at me as well, trying to figure me out.  Who was I to them (cue the music)?  Was I the oppressor in a new package?  Was I some ally who recently found his way to their school in the jungle?  Was I one of the thousands of individuals who came to Rwanda after the violence to pay pennance, soon to leave after I felt my soul had been cleansed?  Or, would I return to keep putting up my strange words and equations on the blackboard, year after year?  On opposite sides of the cage, we looked at each other, wondering who was on which side.      

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.

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.

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.

In my junior year of college, I was driving back to Worcester, Massachusetts from New York City with my oldest friend – Wycuie Bouknight.  Wycuie is a tall, thin, dark-skinned and occasionally chatty prince of the city that I have known since fifth grade.  We had ended up at the same undergraduate institution by accident and after trying to live with other people, we ended up as roommates.  After some holiday, we decided to drive back up to school – late in the evening.  The ride up was a combination of jokes, music, reflections, worries, insights and aspirations. 

At one seemingly deserted rest stop, we pulled up, went to the bathroom and then began to pull away.  Upon doing so, I realized that I had forgotten something in the bathroom.  When we turned around to go back, we were surrounded on all sides by three different police cars.  After turning all the lights in the parking lot on us and pulling out their weapons, the officers approached the car; the blood quickly left my body.  Although they approached us on both sides, I was glad that Wycuie was driving for he would get all the questions – or, at least, that was what I thought.

One cop came to my side, aggressively tapped the window for me to lower it and began to ask questions: “where are you going?”

“Back to school,” I replied.

“What school?”

“Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.”

“Do you have id?”

I waited because I thought they were talking to Wycuie.  He repeated his request while walking even closer to the car.  Scared to death, I gave him my id.

“What is your name?” He asked.

I never understood this.  He has the id, why is he asking the freaking question?  “Christian Davenport,” I said, barely squeezing it out.

Another car arrived and two more officers came out.

“When were you born,” he continued.

My mind was blank.  I couldn’t remember my birth day.  Then after a long pause, “June.  In June.”  I stammered.  Then after another long pause, I blurtered out, “I’m a Gemini.” 

At this, the police officers and Wycuie laughed in an almost uncontrollable fashion.  The guns were put away, the officers left and we pulled off – never to stop or speak for the rest of the trip.  We would speak of the incident later, especially repeating the comical break at the end, but the seriousness of that moment caught us both – one second, one mistake, one twitch – we were shot, it was just that simple. 

I thought of this incident hitting my first roadblock in Rwanda.  Many of the elements were the same: men with guns, attitude, a road that could not be passed, uncertainty, fear.  Several elements were different: I did not speak the language, the guns were not handguns but machine guns, guns were not being pointed at anyone – they were just being carried in a casual fashion, the number of cops involved in the process was seemingly endless: there were the two in the middle of the road, there were the six conducting searches of stopped vehicles, there were the ten sitting on the side of the road for back up and there were another five or six taking a wiz on a tree.

This was perhaps the only time I did not mind my Mizungu status.  Slow down, the driver would either know someone at the block, say something to him that would convince him that we were safe or show him papers.  The guard would look in and either pull us to one side or wave us through.  We were easy to spot. We currently had one person in a seat and we were spread out in the automobile.  This differentiated us from the other cars that had five to six persons per seat as well as a few more holding on the outside.

The guards faces were indifferent, cold, unmoving and ready for action.  The faces on that road in Worcester had been more varied.  All were white but some were relaxed – enjoying the test of wills and the seriousness of the action.  Some were angry – waiting for someone to start so that they could finish.  Some were pleasant (rarely) – doing their job with a degree of professionalism, never acknowledging that the “Driving While Black” Christian and Wycuie takedown was the reason we had been stopped. 

In contrast, I got nothing from the Rwandan faces.  Clearly, however, the difference were there.  Other cars, busses and vans that were stopped had their doors immediately opened, individuals were trotted out and searched on the roadside. 

I was told these were standard “security measures.” 

“What are they looking for,” I asked. 

“Weapons,” I was told – matterfactly. “People that aren’t supposed to be where they are not supposed to be.”

“Who is that?”

To this, I hit that wall around which you could never pass in Rwanda.  “So wide, you can’t get around it; so low, you can’t get under it; so high, you can’t get over it.”  There is a place beyond which one cannot pass.  There are questions that cannot be asked.  There are places where one could not go. 

Of course, things would not stay the same.  On each trip to Rwanda, the roadblocks would be fewer. The guns would be less numerous.  The guards less apparent from everyday life.  These would normally be good signs – signals of an opening, a reduction (like the Surge in Iraq).  But, what did they signal here?  Something different?  Something darker? 

My take was the latter.  One reason why you pull back security and reduce road stops is because there was nobody left to fear.  Once the enemies of the government go abroad, get shot, go to jail or hide, there is nobody left to stop.  With no one left to fear, the road opens.  You were now partially free to move about the country – albeit slowly. 

Now, a trip up to Worcester was a different matter, a different story.  There are plenty of people left to stop in the states.

Recently, an old friend passed.  HIs name was Gil Scott Heron.  According to Gil's obituary in the New York Times, he was "the poet and recording artist whose syncopated spoken style and mordant critiques of politics, racism and mass media in pieces like “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” made him a notable voice of black protest culture in the 1970s and an important early influence on hip-hop, died on Friday at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 62 and had been a longtime resident of Harlem."

Well, this is kind of correct.  Gil is also the person who first "hipped" me to the realities of the world and politics of every situation.  Sitting around between his recording or getting his cover art worked on, he would break things down to me.  It was hear that I first learned about repression, oppression, discrimination and Apartheid.  I had some of the words before these conversations but I did not have the concepts.  

Gil and I would see each other every now and then but the last few were kind of painful because of his problem with drugs.  In fact, this seemed to make it hard for him to talk to me.  I must have just reminded him of something different.  I know that he did to me.  

My last good memory with Gil concerned some time when we were both in London.  I think I was there to hang out for a summer.  He was there for a concert.  Walking down the street, I saw some sign for an upcoming show.  I went to theater and stood outside for him.  Inevitably, he walked by and I stepped up: "Gil, how are you doing?"  He looked at me and said, "fine, little brother" and began to walk away.  I was like, "Gil, it's me - Christian".  He looked at me quizzically.  I then said, "Christian... Christian Davenport - you know connected with Arista Records."  He then smiled and quickly stated: "sorry brother - get over here" (he hugged me). He then continued, "I was going through my mental rolodex of negroes I knew in London and your name didn't come up.  Tell me what you're up too."  

Like so many times before, we spent the next 5-8 hours talking about the world, his career, my going to school and everything he expected me to do and be.  In between he did a show and then we went to go chill in some house somewhere where he did his best to steer me away from what I did not need to be involved with.  


These things Gil could not stay away from and this is partly what did him in. Indeed, my last bad memory of Gil was catching him at the Blue Note or one of those random clubs on the lower east side of Manhattan.  Same deal, I saw some sign that Gil was playing and I went to see him. This time, I figured I would just catch him after the show as I showed up late. I didn't end up waiting however because the show was kind of bad and Gil just did not sound right. I think he saw me at one point and then moved to the other side of the stage (I could be projecting here). At that point, I realized that it was probably not a good thing to check him out after: I did anyway and it was so awkward that I just excused myself. I think we were both embarrassed. I kind of lost him then but kept my memories of all that he did to/for me in my heart.  Indeed, any time I pick up something about politics (which is daily now), I think of Gil.