Many Rwandans I have met speak very good English, but sometimes things translate a bit differently.
The best one: When many of our host families were trying to tell us to “feel free” to do something, they would say, “Be free.”
The phrase soon became the motto of our trip.
It’s a contradictory phrase for this particular journey.
This semester I’ve been studying post-genocide restoration and peace-building.
The idea that we should all just “be free” oversimplifies the idea of freedom.
Survivors of the Rwandan genocide can’t suddenly be free from the physical and psychological trauma they ?endured.
The children forced to go to war in Uganda can’t just ?decide to be free.
And black Americans can’t just be free from decades of discrimination and mistreatment, something I’m reminded of as I prepare to go home shortly after the Ferguson ?verdict.
The “free” sentiment has come up often in this trip.
A couple months ago, my class met with a women’s cooperative formed of widows of the genocide or the wives of genocide perpetrators. The point of the cooperative was to forgive each other — one woman, for example, had to forgive the wife of the man who killed her son.
Another woman told us, “You have to forgive to feel free.”
Those women were the most free people I had ever met, and I was floored by their wisdom and bravery.
Rwanda taught me about constantly changing my ?perspective.
Those women taught me about forgiveness, and so many have taught me about what it’s like to live after ?trauma.
It has also taught me that humanity has limitations. There are extremely kind and giving people in Rwanda, just like there are extremely kind and giving people in America.
Similarly, there are very bad people in Rwanda, just like there are very bad people in America, or anywhere else.
We’re all just people. There’s equality in that — we all feel pain, we all laugh, we all make mistakes sometimes. Yet there’s an inequality in the environments we grow up in. We’re victims to circumstances outside our control.
I feel free by coming ?to Rwanda.
I feel free because I understand a little bit more about this country and a little bit more about the rest of the world.
But I also know that there are a million more things I need to learn because every single person I have met in Rwanda has shaped my perspective in some way.
Truthfully, I took more from Rwanda than I could give to it. I can’t count how many times people assume I’m on a service or mission trip.
Those are honorable endeavors but not what I was here for. Rwanda gave me much more than I could give back.
cjeller@indiana.edu
