13.07.2011 Back With the Children

13.07.2011 Back With the Children!  

            I felt 100% better today!  I went back to see the children.  I missed their faces! Frida was back to being cheery and happy today.  They were quite rowdy though, and very hard to settle.  Mama Anna ended up coming into the class to help settle them.  We went over our alphabet and numbers.  Before Mama Anna came in, Raziki’s bottoms kept falling off. He was dressed in a t-shirt that was too long and a scarf that was tied around his waist.  He would walk, and it would fall and the whole class would see his willy.  We would attempt to tie it back on, he would walk, and it would fall again.  Glory and

Ramona tried to help us, and it fell again.  She called in Mama Anna’s daughter to tie it and she did, and it fell again.  We all thought it was funny, but at the same time frustrating!  Thankfully, we found a pair of pants for him to wear before play time.  The thought of Raziki playing futbol in that scarf makes me laugh to myself.

            Em and I went into town today to go see the Rwanda trials.  They are being held in Arusha because this is such a neutral zone.  Some days the trials are closed because there is a witness who is putting him or herself in danger by testifying. Today we weren’t able to go in because I forgot my ID (damn me…).  I think that it is going to be very unreal to be under the same roof as the people who committed such heinous crimes, and also the people testifying who were victims of such heinous crimes. I read books about how women were gang raped, children were thrown into fires, people were tortured and then murdered, and boys were forced to be soldiers.  It’s devastating.  It’s been difficult for me to imagine somebody so desperate for power, or food, or water, that they would do these things to others.  Would you or I do these things if we were in the same situation?  I say no, but what if I would?  What if these were perfectly normal boys whose souls were hardened by all the evil around them?  No excuse makes the situation excusable, but I try to think of reasons. If it was your life or his life, would you kill him, whoever he may be?   When you’re in the US, it seems far away and fictional.  Knowing they are in the same town as me, right now, gives me chills.