Leon's children

Leon is our house manager. He is at least 70 years old and has been with MGVP for over 20 years. Everyone loves Leon. He is a wonderful man - quiet, unassuming, hard working. He's tall and thin, which I have learned is classic Tutsi.

Ghosts of the genocide are everywhere.

There are memorial parks in every town filled with bright flowers, benches and plaques.

There is a restaurant on the way to Kigali where people were locked inside and burned alive while watching a soccer game on TV - it is still a burned out shell.

When I was at the bank in Kigali this week there were 3 stories in the paper: "Priest Cleared of Genocide Charges", "Controversy Ends as Remains of 40 Genocide Victims are Laid to Rest", Kiziguro Memroial Site a Legacy of Silent Murders". I was uncomfortable reading the stories while sitting in the bank lobby - I found myself looking around me, wondering what the people in this room lived through. Who they lost. Who they killed. I was horrified at my thoughts.

There is a Genocide Museum in Kigali. Some friends from California visited the museum while I did my business in town. They were there for 3 hours and said it was not enough time, although Christian said he couldn't stay in the children's room.

On the way home we passed a village where dozens of people were sitting in a rough circle, looking serious. Our driver told us that this is a tribunal - a Gacaca court - a sort of community justice system where the accused is invited to admit guilt and apologize in an open forum. It has been 15 years, but there is such a huge backlog in the courts that the accused are still being tried in this way. The car got very quiet for a while.

Here in Ruhengeri, my home for the next 2 years, I find myself looking around at people I now call friends and co-workers. Who is Tutsi? Who is Hutu? What did they do? Where did they go? How do they feel now? But we don't talk about it.

I found out last night that Leon's children were killed in the Genocide. I almost cried when I saw his smiling face at breakfast this morning. His oldest grandson is in college now, and MGVP is helping pay for his education. I can't begin to imagine Leon's pain. All the pain in this beautiful country. And yet the people I work with seem to manage to live in the present. Tutsis and Hutu working side by side to protect the forest and the gorillas.