The Desolate Generation Decides

The other day, I was heading home from an early morning walk. I take these sometimes just to think, to take things in, and to enjoy the cool air before it gets to be a sauna in the afternoon. I turned the corner onto the red dirt road that stretches out in front of the place where I live. I was kind of lost in thought, dodging the absurd number of potholes and large boulders in the road, when out of nowhere came this kid, a boy in a white t-shirt carrying a backpack. He was probably about 17 or 18. He started talking to me, picking up speed to keep up with me as I continued to walk. His English was strangely perfect. English, when it’s even spoken, is really rough here, so I wondered where in the world he learned to speak as well as he did.

The boy started making small talk with me. Usually, if I get approached by kids here, it’s either because 1) they want to hug me, touch me, or smile at me, or 2) they want money. I could tell this kid wanted something, and somehow I knew it wasn’t money. He kept making small talk. We were almost to my house, and I was pressed for time, and I didn’t want any B.S. I think I was getting a little irked at being seen as a money machine. “Get to the point, kid,” I thought.

He started to tell me his story. I still couldn’t believe his eloquence and pronunciation. “I haven’t had parents since 1994,” he told me. “They died in the genocide, and so did my other brothers and sisters. I found myself in Burundi in the time immediately following the genocide with no family. Someone had taken me there, and I don’t remember who it was.”

He kept going. “I found out last year that one of my older brothers is still alive. He called me on the phone one day, and he told me that he’s here, in Kigali. I left everything behind and came here so I could find him. I called him, and he didn’t pick up the phone. I haven’t been able to find him since then.”

He got to the point. “Madame, can you help me find my brother? Can you give me a place to stay while I try to find him?”

This isn’t the only kid. There are kids just like this everywhere in Rwanda, countryside and city alike. Orphans of the genocide. I take walks and go for runs on a quiet road next to a big expanse of land, dense with bushes, trees, and crops cultivated by I’m not sure who. Every day, all the time, kids pop out of the bushes. Some of them look to be in their late teens, others much younger. Most of them look like they’ve been sleeping in the dirt. None of them have shoes, and their clothes are torn, tattered, and thin with wear. “Give money,” they say, some more persistent than others. Oftentimes, these are the only 2 words they know in English. If I “gave money” to every kid that’s asked me for it so far, my bank account would be in the negative.

PFR opens the front gate of the office to a huge truckload of kids – 85, and counting – three times per week. (All of the photos in this post were taken in the reconciliation villages or at the PFR office. In the last pic, it was starting to rain in an RV, so I held my umbrella out and village kids happily crowded under it.) All of these kids, ranging in age from 3 to 18, lost at least one parent in the genocide. Too many of them lost both parents and have been left to fend for themselves on the streets. When they come to the office, they get a hot meal, a chance to bathe, literacy training, and a whole lot of TLC from the staff. They run around and “sing” (more like “scream”) songs. The whole point of this is to keep them healthy and strong, to provide them with happiness, a sense of identity and direction. For some of them, these visits to the office keep them going to school. When their afternoons at the office are over, they leave the office gates and return to the street.

It’s nice to shine a little light in their lives, but this is not enough.

The genocide left this entire country in shambles 16 years ago. Infrastructure hit a brick wall and shattered into a million pieces. The education system? The healthcare system? Government, for crying out loud? All of it was a tangled mess. Actually, that’s an understatement. It was nonexistent. Faced with the pressures of street life, orphans of the genocide (understandably) dropped out of primary school and haven’t returned since. Damascene, the guy who maintains the house where I live is 23 (my age) and has never learned to read or write. After he lost his parents in the genocide, there was absolutely no incentive for him to go to school. I mean, if you count your years, he was 7 years old. He had to feed his family, so work was the most necessary option. He lives in a nearby slum and from my understanding, he’s the sole provider for himself, his brother, his brother’s wife and child, and 3 or 4 other family members. And why would he want to go back to school now? A 23-year-old in a classroom of primary schoolers? Not too appealing.

You don’t need some kind of shrink to tell you about the adverse psychological effects of losing a parent or parents to violence, often right in front of your eyes, when you’re 3, 4, 5, 10, 15 years old. You also don’t need an expert to tell you that an entire generation without parents and without an adequate education is going to have some adverse economic and social effects. You end up with tens of thousands of teenagers and young adults who can’t read or write, and worse, who are bitter and want to retaliate for what happened to their families.

When something like genocide happens, you wonder about the causes, talk about the implications, and of course, try to find some kind of blueprint for repair that ensures the same thing doesn’t happen again. Keeping this country from falling into the same situation is challenging – it takes politics, economics, social structures, psychology, and international relations all operating together. It’s not surprising that international eyes are fixed on Rwanda, what many call the ultimate experiment in forgiveness and post-conflict resolution. Is prevention possible?

If you ask this question, you are going to have to look at something that might get overlooked in many cases: the kids. The youngest generation of Rwandans. Why? The children, the youth, and the young adults of present-day Rwanda determine the future of this country more than anyone else does. These are the people who are going to be the future politicians and farming gurus and business leaders. These are the people who are now learning English in place of French after the recent government mandate that all primary and secondary schools teach English. Rwanda is transitioning from a Francophone identity to an Anglophone identity, and the kids, the teens, the adolescents, the young adults, are feeling the effects of this movement more than anyone else. These are the people who are becoming more globally aware. These are the people who actually have a chance of driving the country out of the black hole of genocide ideology.

Young adults in Rwanda right now have to make a choice between retaliation and reconciliation. They have to ask some fundamental questions of themselves and of their country in their earliest years, questions that will dictate what kind of contribution they make to society.

Preventing genocide from happening again is a psychological and practical effort. Psychological, in that we need to change the way people think. We need to inspire in the minds of young people an alternative to discrimination and conflict. Practical, in that people can’t eat tree bark to live. How can we expect kids to even think about school when they’re eating the grass in the field next to their cardboard box of a house? We need to make sure that the education system caters to the country we’re talking about – a country in which 90% of the population is engaged in farming. I’ll talk more about this second aspect in the next post. For now, I’ll touch on the first, epitomized in the PLP movement.

The response to the giant number of orphans here is manifested in many ways – NGOs dedicated to child welfare and education everywhere, orphanages all over the place, student-led movements. I recently found out about the Peace and Love Proclaimers (otherwise known as the “PLP guys”), a group of about 300 guys in Rwanda – all 22 or 23 years old – whose mission is to eradicate genocide ideology among children and youth. It was founded when a few of the leaders noticed that genocide ideology still plagued schools in 2007. Recognizing the boundless importance of changing the way people (especially young people) think, the PLP tirelessly visits schools and orphanages in Rwanda and in surrounding countries, holding events, hosting discussions, and giving speeches about the importance of peace and unity and destroying the Hutu-Tutsi divide. They also do their best to support orphans by helping them find jobs, homes, a direction in life.

The backbone of the PLP is 9 guys – the leaders. They spend a good amount of time at the house where I live because they consult with a partner organization located close to the house. They speak extremely good English, the best I’ve heard in Rwanda. All of them are like brothers – they watch out for each other, and they have an unwavering commitment to the same cause. They live, breathe, eat, drink, sleep PLP. They are a national movement known and very well-respected all over Rwanda. Their influence seeps into surrounding countries, as well. I found out the other day that Marc, the sort of ringleader of the group, has my phone number. (Talking to Marc, by the way, is a sliver away from talking to an American – I’m sure his brilliant English only helps the movement. And his commitment to God is striking.) I inquired of several people how in the world he got my phone number when I only shook his hand in passing one day, and the unanimous answer was: “Grace, it’s Marc. Marc can get whatever he wants when he wants it.” Well then, Marc slays dragons.

Having such a well-known and well-respected movement in this nation is, I think, key to the restoration of Rwanda. PLP is changing the face of Rwanda, and at the same time, as I’ve been told by many PLP guys, it’s changing their own lives, too. They’re revered, and at the same time, they’re good. This is what we want. I’m looking forward to spending more time with these guys in the months to come.