One month to the day from my flight to
Rwanda! Having survived finals and my little sister's surgery I can think of nothing else. I am bringing back my travel blog for the time that I will be gone and will update it now and then before I leave. So today: Why Rwanda?
When I say 'I'm studying in Rwanda next
semester' I get one of three reactions: “Rwanda eh? Don't stay in any
hotels, har har” or “Uhm, where is that again?” and
finally “Why?”.
I will try to explain. Why would I leave my lovely university,
friends, family and boyfriend to study in an obscure African country
famous only for violence?
Because I can't stop thinking about it.
Because to me Rwanda is a broken heart, my addiction to darkness, my
St. Peter's gate, and above all: a question. Because for me, Rwanda
embodies the problem of evil and the mystery of resilience. Beyond
all things this is what I seek to understand of the world. How can an
ordinarily, loving, flawed, special, ordinary human being be twisted
to take up a machete and break apart the bodies of the neighbors they
once called friend. And following this, how can a country made up
murderers and victims go on to become one of the most successful in
the region? In Rwanda, all are stained by history. It is a place of
trauma so deep I cannot comprehend it, and yet it is the golden child
of central Africa, boasting a rapidly growing economy, universal
health care and the strongest military in the region. How could it
fall so quickly into hell? And even more mysteriously, how did it
find it's way out?
This is what I seek to answer in
Rwanda. How people found hope and life in the darkest moment of
modern history. Want nothing more than to learn enough to help
transfer some the lessons of Rwanda to other people struggling
against darkness. I am going to Rwanda because I can do nothing
else. I would love nothing so wildly as this.
The beautiful lake Kivu:
