There is a saying in Rwanda that goes like this: the first time you visit, you are a stranger. The second time, a friend. The third time, family.
During my second trip here in 2011, I discovered that the Rwandan offer of friendship comes with an invitation to experience fully this wondrous country. With the invitation comes the happiness of witnessing the Rwandans’ joy, and the challenge of hearing their suffering. And all of this happens while marveling at the Rwandan people’s dogged determination to keep going, their industrious use of whatever is at hand to thrive.
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I am with six others from the United States, mostly strangers, who have journeyed here to discern and glean and witness what healing looks like when justice, forgiveness, and mercy are set free to roam. We waste no time.
Our first morning, we pile into a well-worn Land Rover driven by our intrepid driver and friend, Saidi, and set out to meet with Pastor Deo Gashagaza, the Executive Director of Prison Fellowship Rwanda, who has established reconciliation villages in Kigali. Places of miracles where people responsible for genocide and people who survived it live and work side by side to foster restoration.
It all sounds impossible. But it is possible, through intentional, daily confession and pardon. A choice to say the words I did this. I murdered your loved ones. I am sorry.
Another choice to respond back, I offer you grace. I do not want to return hatred with revenge. Let us be reconciled. And, still another choice to reside in community, every moment of every day. To live next door to one another, to greet one another every morning, to share food and shelter and space. It is hard and good work. It is not for the faint of heart or soul.
We want to see for ourselves, to hear for ourselves, so we head to one of the villages. As soon as we arrive, before we can get out of the vehicle, people begin to emerge from their homes. In near silence they precede us, accompany us, as we walk to the chairs and benches set up under a make-shift tent. Children quickly appear, standing behind a fence made of cactus, standing with their loved ones, watching us with intense curiosity. We follow tentatively, wondering at their courage, unwilling to cause them sorrow. We are walking on holy and tender ground. We enter the tent and sit in a circle.
The people here are used to welcoming strangers, despite the pain, even because of the pain. They tell us they feel called to relate their story as many times as it takes so that those with ears to hear may understand how quickly lies told by people in positions of authority can lead to anger and division and hate and, eventually, murder. How easy it is to be persuaded to do something so unforgivable. They tell us they feel called to share their experience to all who enter their village so that those with eyes to see may recognize the cleansing humility of confession, the redeeming reversal of forgiveness, the transformative power of mercy, the restorative harmony of community.
We watch and we listen as person after person stands and speaks their truth. One by one. Perpetrator, survivor, perpetrator, survivor. Anguish on the faces of the Rwandans, listening intently, remembering vividly. It has been seventeen years since the bloodshed, but the agony continues. Bodies hunch over, heads bow low, hands rarely remain still from all the wringing the memories induce.
We find it difficult, if not impossible, to tell the Hutus from the Tutsis. The perpetrators from the survivors.
As the stories are told, first in Kinyarwandan, then in English, I notice a young man and woman, seated side by side, the man holding an infant. And then, it is his turn. He stands, hands the baby to the woman next to him, and says, I did wrong. I killed people. This is how I did it. This is why. This is how I have been restored: they have forgiven me. This is how I have become human again: they have allowed me to live in this place. The man returns to his seat beside the woman. And then, it is her turn. She stands, hands her baby to the man who has confessed, once more, and, pointing to the man, she says to all of us gathered around, that man holding my baby, he is the one who killed my loved ones. But I have forgiven him. Now we live as neighbors.
We Americans look at each other, eyes barely registering, ears not comprehending. We are sure our senses betray us. The woman finishes, and returns to her seat beside the man who killed her family. He continues to hold her baby. Their pain has touched our pain. Their hope has become our hope. Our inability to forgive, to live in unity, becomes our regret.
There is more to see, more to learn, so we set out for the mountains.
Outside Kigali, reconciliation villages and trained mediators are hard to find. Yet, forgiveness and reconciliation matter even here, where farmers raise what sustains them on crevices cut into the sides of embankments. To facilitate their healing, they have landed on a novel solution: restoration by way of a coffee cooperative, in which survivors and perpetrators work through their pain, side by side, in the fields, at the wash stations, in meetings.
The paved roads last for awhile, but eventually Saidi turns onto bumpy, dirt roads that lead to the sky. Hours later, we find ourselves in the middle of, literally, Rwanda’s ten thousand hills. It is peaceful, and it is quiet, aside from our occasional alarm when Saidi takes yet another corner at breakneck speed. There are no other cars around. Just people walking or pushing bicycles, heavy laden with produce, or rocks, or branches, or tools, or water.
Suddenly, we hear a bang, then a sound as if something is dragging. Saidi quickly stops the car, calmly gets out, walks behind the vehicle, and discovers that one of our two gas tanks is trying to make a break for it. Half of it is on the road, the other half remains attached to the Land Rover.
We Americans pile out and gather together, valiantly trying to figure out a solution. Are there any tools we can use to reattach the gas tank? Should we try and remove it? What about the gas? Do we have enough in the other tank? How long until it gets dark? Do you think we have any cell reception here?
We assess our current situation, sometimes moving to the front of the vehicle, other times bending down to look below. While we chat, Saidi ignores us and goes straight to work. He has decided to prop up the Rover, we think to get a better look. We helpfully suggest he use the jack that surely is part of the car’s kit. Saidi, who served as a Captain in the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) under General Paul Kagame, makes it clear he has other ideas. He heads for a small tree, pulls out his machete, and cuts it down. We watch, bemused, as he crawls under the SUV, wondering how long he will try this experiment of his. Wondering how fast someone will get hurt. Wondering if we should start finding shelter. How much water do we have left?
And then, once again, we are sure our eyes and ears deceive us. Somehow, Saidi braces the vehicle. Next thing you know, the tank has been removed, a plastic bowl has been located from a nearby farm, a funnel has been fashioned out of an empty water bottle, and gas has been poured into the first tank.
As we smile at ourselves and our ignorance of Rwandan resilience and imagination, Saidi straps the renegade tank onto the top of the vehicle, cleans himself up, and enjoys some pineapple, courtesy of the nearby farmer who gave us the bowl. It only takes Saidi an hour to tame the mutinous container.
We pile back into that well-worn Land Rover and head up the road until we reach another place of miracles where Rwandans, both Hutus and Tutsis together, have chosen to do what the world deems impossible: to heal and be reconciled through justice, forgiveness, and mercy, by living and working together in harmony.
Let us do likewise.
Born and raised overseas, Kim Jackson continues to travel far and wide, collecting stories of hope and healing. As an artist and a pastor, Kim seeks to foster forgiveness and reconciliation.