Counting down the days.

"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself."

- Galileo

Hey there! Better yet, muraho! Zach here. As you might have read in the post before, I will be volunteering with Ioana and all the other amazing volunteers at N4A. We are leaving in less than a week and things are getting pretty hectic here! So far Sophie and everyone else at N4A has been super helpful in getting us ready for the trip. We're hoping to bring a suitcase full of donations and another full of sun tan lotion, bugspray and maybe some clothes too. The strangest part about preparing for our trip was putting away most of my stuff and saying to myself "I'll have no use for that in Rwanda." Most of my life simply has no place in Kigali and will be in storage for the next 3 months.

So again, I just graduate from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, USA with a degree in Chemical Engineering (I just found out that the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology does not have a Chemical Engineering Department, we'll see about that). I also studied economic, environmental sustainability topics during my time there. While I do play a few instruments and took a few vocal classes, I would barely call myself a musician. However, I will be bringing my acoustic guitar for Amy Stead and David Wald, who are setting up a music school! Should be really exciting and I hope to be a part of it.

So what else am I doing? Well, teaching for short. But since I can't teach the entire English language to someone in such a short amount of time, I like the term empowering, which is exactly what N4A does. More children are attending school in Rwanda than at any other time in the country's history. Female students in particular are dramatically increasing in numbers, so it is a very exciting time of progress and development for the country. (Fun Fact: Rwandan's parliament became the first in the world to contain a majority of women - 56%!) N4A helps Rwandans help themselves, and as Galileo put it, N4A helps the Rwandans find it within themselves. It could be a budding entrepeneur, engineer, or perhaps an artist or a musician. Thus I hope to contribute my english, scientific and financial knowledge in order to help the Rwadans find their "it" within themselves.

On a different note, while preparing for Rwanda, Ioana and I watched the chilling Beyond the Gates (also titled Shooting Dogs, a better title in our opinion) and Sometimes in April. The latter demonstrated life after the genocide as the people of Rwanda rebuilt their lives with tremendous energy and courage. In the movie the protagonist's own brother is charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda with crimes against humanity. It is the process of reconciliation between the killers and the relatives of those who were killed that accounts for the most interesting part of the plot.

If you feel like watching a movie about the Rwandan genocide not focusing on the Rwandans themselves, then look no further than Beyond the Gates. The movie stands as a stark example of complete abandonement by the Western world. Over 2,500 refugees have fled to a Church/schoolyard under protection by a Belgian UN force. The area is run by a priest and idealistic-to-the-point-of-naive young English teacher named Chris (hmm... sound familiar? *cough cough*). Six days after the fateful April day, the UN decides to withdraw from the compound leaving the refugees to be massacred. Most importantly, this scenario is not limited to the situation described in the movie. As the number of UN soldiers decreased from 2500 to 250, numerous places of refuge across Rwanda were left unprotected from the interahamwe waiting outside.

For a different vantage point or more information on the genocide, you can watch the documentary Ghosts of Rwanda. The relevent scene to the discussion above starts at 3:30:

Well that's about it for now. Soon we'll be able to update you on what we're doing in Kigali. Until then, muramukeho!

-- Zach