Friday 7/5/07 7:30 AM
It is a weird feeling sitting on the veranda by myself in the morning as I have done most days so far. This is a nice hotel. Very nice. The nicest in Kigali I am told. The nicest in Rwanda. Presidents stay here. So here I am on a “mission”, staying in the nicest place in the country. I realize that just by staying here I am “helping” Rwanda. Many people are employed in this hotel. A man washes the tiles on this big veranda almost every day. The rooms are immaculate. The food is excellent. The waiters and waitresses all make a wonderful living because of this hotel. Many people are benefiting from our visit so far from the doormen to the drivers but I still have tha
t doubt about whether or not it was worth it for me to come.
It is a weird feeling sitting on the veranda by myself in the morning as I have done most days so far. This is a nice hotel. Very nice. The nicest in Kigali I am told. The nicest in Rwanda. Presidents stay here. So here I am on a “mission”, staying in the nicest place in the country. I realize that just by staying here I am “helping” Rwanda. Many people are employed in this hotel. A man washes the tiles on this big veranda almost every day. The rooms are immaculate. The food is excellent. The waiters and waitresses all make a wonderful living because of this hotel. Many people are benefiting from our visit so far from the doormen to the drivers but I still have tha
t doubt about whether or not it was worth it for me to come. I don’t know how the others in the group feel. To some it may be a cool experience just to travel to a faraway place. To some in our group it changes the world just a little bit to give out angel stickers to poor children who come up to the car when we stop. What real difference am I making besides fueling the economy? Even the money I have given to the drivers and the orphanage; the songs and sweets for the little ones haven’t made a real difference in anyone’s lives. When I am here among such enormous grief and need and staying in the Serena Hotel like I am royalty, spending hundreds of dollars to see gorillas and being guarded by men with machine guns, sitting in the VIP section of the stadium to watch a parade and leaving that event to enter crowds of people some with only one arm and asking for money in one language
after another…Scars and laughter, grief and forgiveness, mothers toiling in fields with little ones wrapped to their backs in the rain, pictures of those who died in the genocide, prayers to forgive, pushing bicycles laden with fruit or wood up mountainsides… Richard.
1 comment:
This was a very important trip for you to make. You have already taught so many so much. You have changed my life with your writing. Would you allow such a thing as genocide to ever happen again, now that you have been there? You will now be our conscious and our safeguard. Thank you for sharing your trip.
Ruthie
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