Road to Rwanda----Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi

Starting today we have the next week off from school.  You might think that it is Easter holiday, and that is certainly one factor, but more basically here it is a week (really 100 days, until July) of remembrance for the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi in 1994.  When we started to hear about this in the wider international community in 1994, we were utterly horrified....but delayed any response until almost a million Tutsi and moderate Hutu were massacred.  I remember.....and the mourning I felt particularly because of its relationship to the  people group in my beloved Zambia, where we lived and loved from 1981-1984.  Today, now, it is a moving factor in what modern Rwanda is.  For most of the year we are forbidden (it is actually illegal) to concentrate on the genocide or to identify tribal connections.  But for the next month, every April, the nation is to mourn and commemorate the genocide victims.  Rwanda is recognized as a nation that has successfully grown past or perhaps incorporated a horrific episode of killing and now actively strives for peaceful resolution of conflict.  April 7 was the beginning of the genocide and today businesses are closed and we are to remain close to home and quiet.  For the next month there is not to be unprescribed music or rowdiness anywhere, even bars or churches. We are to be somber and respectful of the mourning attitude that is pervasive.   During our unit on the Holocaust in grade 8, we did discuss the relationship to the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi.  The students had stories, but still the unanswerable quesion, "Why?" and "How could they?" but it becomes even "How could WE?"  A rather poignant Good Friday.