The scariest thing happened the other day when Mike and I were walking back home from downtown. As we've made clear many times, people tend to congregate around us everywhere we go; however, this time our crowd of spectators included a little boy of no more than 5, who was holding a machete. I'm not even kidding. And before we reached where he was standing, he was waving it around. It took everything in me not to scream and I grabbed Mike's arm and almost literally ran by him without my usual greeting of "Muraho!"
Not only is it terrifying to imagine what a 5-year old could do with a machete; what's even scarier is knowing the history of these weapons in this country. It tended to be the weapon of choice in the genocide of 1994, so once you got over this child using it as a toy, you can't help but wonder how it was used 14 years ago... Was it used to kill innocents? If so, did they tell the boy of its history?
The history of the country is muted all around us, so you can't help but speculate, as Mike has talked about. I've just discovered that "Camp Kigali," where the Belgian UN soldiers were slaughtered, is a 5 minute walk from our house... it's crazy. This weekend we're planning to visit this, as well as other memorials, and I'm sure we'll have a lot to say about that. We'll be sure to keep you posted!
Amahoro,
Steph xoxo
PS- We've gotten some complaints that it seems as if nothing that interesting has happened to us yet (because apparently being charged by an elephant is a walk in the park), so I'll try to post more of these little anecdotes here and there...
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When I read the story about the elephant I pictured you guys in that scene from Jurassic Park where they were driving away from the T-Rex and they looked in the rear view mirror and you see the little warning "Objects in mirror are larger than they appear". Just thought I'd throw that out there, stay safe, see you guys in Sept.
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